ens me. If she
is not saved from that wretched fate, I shall die despairing, I shall
die cursing--"

The Minister sternly stopped her before she could say the next word.
To my astonishment she appeared to be humbled, to be even ashamed: she
asked his pardon: "Forgive me; I won't forget myself again. They tell
me you have no children of your own. Is that a sorrow to you and your
wife?"

Her altered tone touched him. He answered sadly and kindly: "It is the
one sorrow of our lives."

The purpose which she had been keeping in view from the moment when
the Minister entered her cell was no mystery now. Ought I to have
interfered? Let me confess a weakness, unworthy perhaps of my office. I
was so sorry for the child--I hesitated.

My silence encouraged the mother. She advanced to the Minister with the
sleeping infant in her arms.

"I daresay you have sometimes thought of adopting a child?" she said.
"Perhaps you can guess now what I had in my mind, when I asked if you
would consent to a sacrifice? Will you take this wretched innocent
little creature home with you?" She lost her self-possession once more.
"A motherless creature to-morrow," she burst out. "Think of that."

God knows how I still shrunk from it! But there was no alternative now;
I was bound to remember my duty to the excellent man, whose critical
position at that moment was, in some degree at least, due to my
hesitation in asserting my authority. Could I allow the Prisoner to
presume on his compassionate nature, and to hurry him into a decision
which, in his calmer moments, he might find reason to regret? I spoke
to _him_. Does the man live who--having to say what I had to say--could
have spoken to the doomed mother?

"I am sorry to have allowed this to go on," I said. "In justice to
yourself, sir, don't answer!"

She turned on me with a look of fury.

"He shall answer," she cried.

I saw, or thought I saw, signs of yielding in his face. "Take time," I
persisted--"take time to consider before you decide."

She stepped up to me.

"Take time?" she repeated. "Are you inhuman enough to talk of time, in
my presence?"

She laid the sleeping child on her bed, and fell on her knees before the
Minister: "I promise to hear your exhortations--I promise to do all
a woman can to believe and repent. Oh, I know myself! My heart, once
hardened, is a heart that no human creature can touch. The one way to
my better nature--if I have a better nature--is through th