"You are very good, sir," said the superintendent, and the pitiful woman cried out:
"Heaven bless you, sir! I would do the same thing myself if I could afford it."
"There must be an inquest," said some one in the crowd; "we ought to know whether the child was dead before it was thrown into the water."
"I hope to Heaven it was!" cried the woman.
And I said to myself that, if that were the case, it would not be murder—not murder, but some mad, miserable mother's way out of some dreadful difficulty.
Surely on the beautiful, despairing face I had not seen the brand of murder. If the little one had been dead, that would lessen the degree of wickedness so greatly.
The woman who had dried and kissed the tiny waxen face bent over it now.
"I am sure," she said, "that the child was alive when it touched the water."
"How do you know?" asked the superintendent, curiously.
"Look at the face, sir, and you will see."