ed the sole right of deciding. It
was for him to say whether this woman should, or should not, remain
in attendance on the child whom he had adopted. In the meanwhile, the
feeling of distrust which was gaining on my mind warned me to remember
the value of reserve in holding intercourse with a stranger.

She seemed to be irritated by my silence. "If the decision doesn't rest
with you," she asked, "why did you tell me to stay in the waiting-room?"

"You brought the little girl into the prison," I said; "was it not
natural to suppose that your mistress might want you--"

"Stop, sir!"

I had evidently given offense; I stopped directly.

"No person on the face of the earth," she declared, loftily, "has ever
had the right to call herself my mistress. Of my own free will, sir, I
took charge of the child."

"Because you are fond of her?" I suggested.

"I hate her."

It was unwise on my part--I protested. "Hate a baby little more than a
year old!" I said.

"_Her_ baby!"

She said it with the air of a woman who had produced an unanswerable
reason. "I am accountable to nobody," she went on. "If I consented
to trouble myself with the child, it was in remembrance of my
friendship--notice, if you please, that I say friendship--with the
unhappy father."

Putting together what I had just heard, and what I had seen in the cell,
I drew the right conclusion at last. The woman, whose position in life
had been thus far an impenetrable mystery to me, now stood revealed
as one, among other objects of the Prisoner's jealousy, during her
disastrous married life. A serious doubt occurred to me as to the
authority under which the husband's mistress might be acting, after the
husband's death. I instantly put it to the test.

"Do I understand you to assert any claim to the child?" I asked.

"Claim?" she repeated. "I know no more of the child than you do. I
heard for the first time that such a creature was in existence, when
her murdered father sent for me in his dying moments. At his entreaty I
promised to take care of her, while her vile mother was out of the house
and in the hands of the law. My promise has been performed. If I am
expected (having brought her to the prison) to take her away again,
understand this: I am under no obligation (even if I could afford it)
to burden myself with that child; I shall hand her over to the workhouse
authorities."

I forgot myself once more--I lost my temper.

"Leave the room," I said. "Yo