"I did not allow my thoughts to stray quite so far, Mrs. Ocumpaugh. Not till my knowledge of your secret promised to be of use did I let it rise to any proportion in my mind. I had too much sympathy for your difficulties; I have to-day."
This hint of comfort, perhaps from the only source which could afford her any, seemed to move her.
"Do you mean that you are my friend?" she cried. "That you would help me, if any help were possible, to keep my secret and—my husband's love?"
I did not know how to dash the first spark of hope I had seen in her from the beginning of this more than painful interview. To avoid it, I temporized a trifle and answered with ready earnestness:
"I would do much, Mrs. Ocumpaugh, to make the consequences of your act as ineffective as possible and still be true to the interests of Mr. Ocumpaugh. If the child can be found—you wish that? You loved her?"
"O yes, I loved her." There was no mistaking the wistfulness of her tone. "Too well, far too well; only my husband more."
"If you can find her—that is the first thing, isn't it?"
"Yes."
It was a faint rejoinder. I looked at her again.
"You do not wish her found," I suddenly declared.