"Don't say that—don't say you don't know where they're gone. They've got my child, I tell you; my poor little Paul.
"Oh, so you're the young party as drowned herself, are you? Well, they're gone anyways, and the little chit with them, and there's no saying where. You may believe me. Ask the neighbors else."
The young woman leaned against the door-jamb with a white face and great eyes.
"Well, well, how hard she takes it. Deary me, deary me, she's not a bad sort, after all. Well, well, who'd ha' thought it! There, there, come in and sit awhile. It is cruel to lose one's babby—and me to tell her, too. Misbegotten or not, it's one's own flesh and blood, and that's what I always says."
The young woman had been drawn into the house and seated on a chair. She got up again with the face of an old woman.
"Oh, I'm choking!" she said.
"Rest awhile, do now, my dear—there—there."
"No, no, my good woman, let me go."
"Heaven help you, child; how you look!"
"Heaven has never helped me," said the young woman. "I was a Sister of Charity only two years ago. A man found me and wooed me; married me and abandoned me; I tried to die and they rescued me; they separated me from my child and put me in an asylum; I escaped, and have now come for my darling, and he is gone."