ard battle for, had snatched from thousands of dangers,
her darling, her sweet little one.

Little Jean-Pierre's sister and brothers stood there in silence with
eyes wide open. Had they understood that their brother was going away,
going for ever? No, they could not have understood it, otherwise they
would have shown how grieved they were. Their big eyes were only
interested in the bread on the table.

Paul Schlieben pitied the little ones greatly--they would remain
there in their wretchedness, their hunger, their poverty. He stuck a
present into the hands of all four. None of the four thanked him for
it, but their small fingers clasped the money tightly.

The woman did not thank him either. When the strange lady took
Jean-Pierre out of the cradle--she had seen it without looking
in that direction--she had started. But now she stood motionless near
the empty cradle, on the spot where the axe had fallen out of her right
hand before with a loud noise, looking on in silence whilst Jean-Pierre
was being wrapped up in the soft cloak. She had nothing to give
him.

Paul Schlieben had feared there would be a scene at the very last in
spite of the mother's indifference--she surely could not remain so
totally void of feeling, when they carried her youngest child away
with them?--but the woman remained calm. She stood there motionless,
her left hand pressed against the place in her skirt where she
felt the pocket. Did not that money in her pocket--Paul felt very
disturbed--give the lie to all the traditions about a mother's love?
And still--the woman was so demoralised by her great poverty, half
brutalised in the hard struggle for her daily bread, that even the
feeling she had for the child she had borne had vanished. Oh, what a
different mother Kate would be to the child now. And he pushed his
wife, who had the little one in her arms, towards the door, in his
tender anxiety for her.

Let them only get away, it was not a nice place to be in.

They hastened away. Kate turned her head once more when she reached
the threshold. She would have to cast a glance at the woman who
remained behind so stiff and silent. Even if she were incomprehensible
to her, a compassionate glance was her due.

Then ... a short cry, but loud, penetrating, terrible in its
brevity, a cry that went through nerve and bone. One single
inarticulate cry that agony and hatred had wrung from her.

The woman had stooped down. She had snatched up the axe wi