"Is the child a girl or a boy?" I asked at last.
"A girl," she replied tonelessly.
"And is it living?"
"I don't know."
I jumped from my bed and looked at her incredulously.
"How is that possible? Don't you know whether your child is living or not?"
She stared at me with a stupid, helpless look, and my pity was aroused.
"Tell me everything," I pleaded softly: "perhaps it will take a load from your heart."
After that she told me everything. How the man had neglected and abandoned her, how she had faced hunger for nine months to keep her baby with her, how she had fallen ill at last, and was compelled to separate from the child in order to save it from starvation. While she told me all this, her tears flowed incessantly, and I stroked her hands.
"To whom did you give your baby?" I asked in a low voice.