"'I cannot forget that I am a mother, and that I have a child whom I love,' she said. 'Those facts cannot be wiped out of my life like a blot of ink off a fair white page. No, I cannot go backward.'
"'And you still adore your seducer; his love can still reconcile you to your infamy?' I asked.
"She hung her head and melted into tears, tears which I believe were the marks of a deep-rooted anguish. She was a being not made for dishonour, and she felt in this moment that she was drifting into deeper shame.
"'You have ceased to love your paramour,' I said sternly.
"'He has ceased to be kind to me,' she faltered.
"'Come,' I said, 'it is time for you to leave him. Your life in this house is beset with peril.'
"It was in vain that I urged her. I was by turns stern and gentle. I promised all that love could offer, I threatened all that my experience could foresee of evil in her present course.
"'You are on the high-road to an abandoned life,' I said; 'between you and the most notorious courtesan in London or Paris there is but the narrowest boundary-line, and so long as you remain in this house you are in hourly danger of passing it. If your own inconstant heart do not betray you, 'tis ten to one your first betrayer will tire of you and pay off old scores by passing you on to his friend.'
"She fell on her knees at my feet in a flood of tears, entreated me to give her time to think of the matter, and if she could find a way of taking her child with her, she would perhaps go with me.
"'Tell me where your child is to be found, and I will look to that part of the business,' I said; and then I discovered that she did not even know the name of the town or village to which her baby had been taken. She knew only that the nurse lived in Buckinghamshire.