"You say some of the states have repealed this law. Why did they do it?"
"Oh, they found it contrary to the spirit of the age, I suppose. I guess the women's rights people prodded them up a little, maybe."
"Judge Kirtley," said Margaret, after a pause in which her mind had gone from women's rights to women's wrongs, "do you suppose many women are forced to give up their children under this law?"
"Not many of your kind, Margaret. Perhaps not many of any kind. But it is a thing well known that many brutal men know of this law and hold it as a club over their wives. A lazy, good-for-nothing negro, for instance, will often make his wife support him, here in the District where there are so many of them, by using this threat."
"Oh, it is cruel! cruel!" she cried, her voice trembling with indignation.
"Margaret, I think, judging from your face just now, that if you were a man you would say of this law, as Lincoln did of slavery, 'If I ever get a chance at that institution I'll hit it hard!'"
"I would! I would! If I were a man. But what can a woman do but suffer!"
"Some of them learn to fight," he said, "enough at least to defend their young."
It was in her mind to ask him further questions, but he forestalled them.
"You'd better go home now, child, and think no more about it for a while. I will see Mr. De Jarnette and arrange to go with you to his office to-morrow."