cruel, as that?

I dare say it was a terrible thing to bring God to the bar of judgment,
to be judged by His poor weak ignorant creature; but it was also
terrible to sit with a dying baby on my lap (I thought mine was dying),
and to feel that there was nothing--not one thing--I could do to relieve
its sufferings.

My faith went down like a flood during the heavy hours of that day--all
that I had been taught to believe about God's goodness and the
marvellous efficacy of the Sacraments of His Church.

I thought of the Sacrament of my marriage, which the Pope told me had
been sanctioned by my Redeemer under a natural law that those who
entered into it might live together in peace and love--and then of my
husband and his brutal infidelities.

I thought of the Sacrament of my baby's baptism, which was to exorcise
all the devils out of my child--and then of the worst devil in the
world, poverty, which was taking her very life.

After that a dark shadow crossed my soul, and I told myself that since
God was doing nothing, since He was allowing my only treasure to be torn
away from me, I would fight for my child's life as any animal fights for
her young.

By this time a new kind of despair had taken hold of me. It was no
longer the paralysing despair but the despair that has a driving force
in it.

"My child shall not die," I thought. "At least poverty shall not kill
her!"

Many times during the day I had heard Mrs. Oliver trying to comfort me
with various forms of sloppy sentiment. Children were a great trial,
they were allus makin' and keepin' people pore, and it was sometimes
better for the dears themselves to be in their 'eavenly Father's boosim.

I hardly listened. It was the same as if somebody were talking to me in
my sleep. But towards nightfall my deaf ear caught something about
myself--that "it" (I knew what that meant) might be better for me, also,
for then I should be free of encumbrances and could marry again.

"Of course you could--you so young and good-lookin'. Only the other day
the person at number five could tell me as you were the prettiest woman
as comes up the Row, and the Vicar's wife couldn't hold a candle to you.
'Fine feathers makes fine birds,' says she: 'Give your young lady a nice
frock and a bit o' colour in her checks, and there ain't many as could
best her in the West End neither.'"

As the woman talked dark thoughts took possession of me. I began to
think of Angela. I tried not to, b