t unmoved. Mr. Snivel thinks the woman
better be removed. "Our half-starved mechanics," he says, "are a
depraved set; and these wives they bring with them from the North are a
sort of cross between a lean stage-driver and a wildcat. She seems a
poor, destitute creature--just what they all come to, out here." Mr.
Snivel shrugs his shoulders, bids George good night, and takes his
departure. "Take care of yourself, George," he says admonitiously, as
the destitute man watches him take his leave. The woman, frantic at the
coldness and apathy manifested for her distress, lays her babe hurriedly
upon the floor, and with passion and despair darting from her very eyes,
makes a lunge across the keno table at the man who sits stoically at the
bank. In an instant everything is turned into uproar and confusion.
Glasses, chairs, and tables, are hurled about the floor; shriek follows
shriek--"help! pity me! murder!" rises above the confusion, the watch
without sound the alarm, and the watch within suddenly become conscious
of their duty. In the midst of all the confusion, a voice cries out:
"My pocket book--my pocket book!--I have been robbed." A light flashes
from a guardsman's lantern, and George Mullholland is discovered with
the forlorn woman in his arms--she clings tenaciously to her
babe--rushing into the street.

CHAPTER XXXII.

WHICH A STATE OF SOCIETY IS SLIGHTLY REVEALED.

A week has rolled into the past since the event at the Keno den.

Madame Montford, pale, thoughtful, and abstracted, sits musing in her
parlor. "Between this hope and fear--this remorse of conscience, this
struggle to overcome the suspicions of society, I have no peace. I am
weary of this slandering--this unforgiving world. And yet it is my own
conscience that refuses to forgive me. Go where I will I see the cold
finger of scorn pointed at me: I read in every countenance, 'Madame
Montford, you have wronged some one--your guilty conscience betrays
you!' I have sought to atone for my error--to render justice to one my
heart tells me I have wronged, yet I cannot shake off the dread burden;
and there seems rest for me only in the grave. Ah! there it is. The one
error of my life, and the moans used to conceal it, may have brought
misery upon more heads than one." She lays her hand upon her heart, and
shakes her head sorrowfully. "Yes! something like a death-knell rings in
my ears--'more than one have you sent, unhappy, to the grave.' Rejected
by the