he second time I attempted to leave the cell. For the second time
this impenetrable woman called me back.

"Take the parson away with you," she said. "I refuse to listen to him."

The patient Minister yielded, and appealed to me to follow his example.
I reluctantly sanctioned the delivery of the message.

After a brief interval the child was brought to us, tired and sleepy.
For a while the nurse roused her by setting her on her feet. She
happened to notice the Minister first. Her bright eyes rested on him,
gravely wondering. He kissed her, and, after a momentary hesitation,
gave her to her mother. The horror of the situation overpowered him:
he turned his face away from us. I understood what he felt; he almost
overthrew my own self-command.

The Prisoner spoke to the nurse in no friendly tone: "You can go."

The nurse turned to me, ostentatiously ignoring the words that had been
addressed to her. "Am I to go, sir, or to stay?" I suggested that she
should return to the waiting-room. She returned at once in silence. The
Prisoner looked after her as she went out, with such an expression of
hatred in her eyes that the Minister noticed it.

"What has that person done to offend you?" he asked.

"She is the last person in the whole world whom I should have chosen
to take care of my child, if the power of choosing had been mine. But
I have been in prison, without a living creature to represent me or to
take my part. No more of that; my troubles will be over in a few hours
more. I want you to look at my little girl, whose troubles are all to
come. Do you call her pretty? Do you feel interested in her?"

The sorrow and pity in his face answered for him.

Quietly sleeping, the poor baby rested on her mother's bosom. Was the
heart of the murderess softened by the divine influence of maternal
love? The hands that held the child trembled a little. For the first
time it seemed to cost her an effort to compose herself, before she
could speak to the Minister again.

"When I die to-morrow," she said, "I leave my child helpless and
friendless--disgraced by her mother's shameful death. The workhouse
may take her--or a charitable asylum may take her." She paused; a first
tinge of color rose on her pale face; she broke into an outburst of
rage. "Think of _my_ daughter being brought up by charity! She may
suffer poverty, she may be treated with contempt, she may be employed by
brutal people in menial work. I can't endure it; it madd