"No!"
"You have a child?"
"What is my child to you?"
"Everything. You are a mother--so am I: you love your child--I love mine; yet you would make my innocent child suffer for its father's crime. Oh, if you have any feelings of a mother, spare the father for the sake of the child."
Kitty stood irresolute, while the woman at her feet burst into wild and passionate weeping.
At this moment Meg entered the room by the window, and paused for a moment.
"Mumsey," she said, "why does the lady cry?"
Kitty would have interposed, but Mrs. Malton stretched out her hands to Meg with a quiet in-drawing of her breath.
"I am crying for my little girl."
"Is she dead?" asked Meg, coming to the kneeling woman, and touching her shoulder. "Poor lady--poor, poor lady!"