"Not a week old?" Jervy repeated, with his eye on Phoebe. "Dear, dear
me, a newborn baby, one may say!"

The girl's excitement was fast getting beyond control. She leaned across
the table, in her eagerness to hear more.

"And how long was this poor child under your care?" Jervy went on.

"How can I tell you, at this distance of time? For some months, I should
say. This I'm certain of--I kept it for six good weeks after the ten
pounds he gave me were spent. And then--" she stopped, and looked at
Phoebe.

"And then you got rid of it?"

Mrs. Sowler felt for Jervy's foot under the table, and gave it a
significant kick. "I have done nothing to be ashamed of, miss," she
said, addressing her answer defiantly to Phoebe. "Being too poor to keep
the little dear myself, I placed it under the care of a good lady, who
adopted it."

Phoebe could restrain herself no longer. She burst out with the next
question, before Jervy could open his lips.

"Do you know where the lady is now?"

"No," said Mrs. Sowler shortly; "I don't."

"Do you know where to find the child?"

Mrs. Sowler slowly stirred up the remains of her grog. "I know no more
than you do. Any more questions, miss?"

Phoebe's excitement completely blinded her to the evident signs of a
change in Mrs. Sowler's temper for the worse. She went on headlong.

"Have you never seen the child since you gave her to the lady?"

Mrs. Sowler set down her glass, just as she was raising it to her lips.
Jervy paused, thunderstruck, in the act of lighting a second cigar.

_"Her?"_ Mrs. Sowler repeated slowly, her eyes fixed on Phoebe with
a lowering expression of suspicion and surprise. "Her?" She turned to
Jervy. "Did you ask me if the child was a girl or a boy?"

"I never even thought of it," Jervy replied.

"Did I happen to say it myself, without being asked?"

Jervy deliberately abandoned Phoebe to the implacable old wretch, before
whom she had betrayed herself. It was the only likely way of forcing
the girl to confess everything. "No," he answered; "you never said it
without being asked."

Mrs. Sowler turned once more to Phoebe. "How do you know the child was a
girl?" she inquired.

Phoebe trembled, and said nothing. She sat with her head down, and her
hands, fast clasped together, resting on her lap.

"Might I ask, if you please," Mrs. Sowler proceeded, with a ferocious
assumption of courtesy, "how old you are, miss? You're young enough and
pretty enough not to m