But one course presented itself. He would take it to New York, and once there, he would have no further trouble with it—he would manage to lose it. Many waifs were found on the doorsteps, and no one ever could trace their parentage, or whose hand had placed them there.
In all probability he would never run across Ida May again. She believed her child dead.
While these thoughts were flitting through his brain, the little one commenced to cry. Its piteous wails attracted the attention of more than one person in the car.
"Mother," said a buxom young woman sitting opposite, "I am sure that young man is a widower, left with the little child, and he is taking it to his folks. You see he is in deep mourning.
"I'll bet that baby's hungry, mother, and I'll bet, too, that he hasn't a nursing-bottle to feed it from."
"You can depend upon it that he has one," remarked her mother. "Every father knows that much about babies."
"Of course he has it in his pocket; he never came away without one; but he is so deeply engrossed in his own thoughts that he does not hear the baby. Don't you think you ought to give him a little reminder of it?" said her daughter, thoughtfully. "You're an elderly woman, and can do it."
"He might tell me to mind my own business," said the elder woman. "Some strangers don't take kindly to other people meddling in their affairs."
As the plaintive wails of the infant increased instead of diminished, the elder woman got up and made her way up the aisle.