sy." She pointed to the child. "Remember what I say, reverend sir!
You will find the tigress-cub take after its mother."

With those parting words, she favored us with a low curtsey, and left
the room.

CHAPTER VI. THE DOCTOR DOUBTS.

The Minister looked at me in an absent manner; his attention seemed to
have been wandering. "What was it Miss Chance said?" he asked.

Before I could speak, a friend's voice at the door interrupted us. The
Doctor, returning to me as he had promised, answered the Minister's
question in these words:

"I must have passed the person you mean, sir, as I was coming in here;
and I heard her say: 'You will find the tigress-cub take after its
mother.' If she had known how to put her meaning into good English, Miss
Chance--that is the name you mentioned, I think--might have told you
that the vices of the parents are inherited by the children. And the
one particular parent she had in her mind," the Doctor continued, gently
patting the child's cheek, "was no doubt the mother of this unfortunate
little creature--who may, or may not, live to show you that she comes of
a bad stock and inherits a wicked nature."

I was on the point of protesting against my friend's interpretation,
when the Minister stopped me.

"Let me thank you, sir, for your explanation," he said to the Doctor.
"As soon as my mind is free, I will reflect on what you have said.
Forgive me, Mr. Governor," he went on, "if I leave you, now that I have
placed the Prisoner's confession in your hands. It has been an effort to
me to say the little I have said, since I first entered this room. I can
think of nothing but that unhappy criminal, and the death that she must
die to-morrow."

"Does she wish you to be present?" I asked.

"She positively forbids it. 'After what you have done for me,' she
said, 'the least I can do in return is to prevent your being needlessly
distressed.' She took leave of me; she kissed the little girl for the
last time--oh, don't ask me to tell you about it! I shall break down
if I try. Come, my darling!" He kissed the child tenderly, and took her
away with him.

"That man is a strange compound of strength and weakness," the Doctor
remarked. "Did you notice his face, just now? Nine men out of ten,
suffering as he suffered, would have failed to control themselves. Such
resolution as his _may_ conquer the difficulties that are in store for
him yet."

It was a trial of my temper to hear my clever colleag