It was no time for modesty, not from me at all events, so while the Father's head was down, I asked plainly if there was a child, and was told there was, and the fear of having it taken from her (I could understand that) was perhaps the reason my poor darling had hidden herself away.
"And now, when, where, and by whom was she seen last?" I asked.
"Last week, and again to-day, to-night, here in the West End—by a fallen woman," answered the Sister.
"And what conclusion do you draw from that?"
The Sister hesitated for a moment and then said:
"That her child is dead; that she does not know you are alive; and that she is throwing herself away, thinking there is nothing left to live for."
"What?" I cried. "You believe that? Because she left that brute of a husband . . . and because she came to me . . . you believe that she could. . . . Never! Not Mary O'Neill! She would beg her bread, or die in the streets first."
I dare say my thickening voice was betraying me; but when I looked at Mildred and saw the tears rolling down her cheeks and heard her excuses (it was "what hundreds of poor women were driven to every day"), I was ashamed and said so, and she put her kind hand in my hand in token of her forgiveness.
"But what's to be done now?" she asked.
O'Sullivan was for sending for the police, but I would not hear of that. I was beginning to feel as I used to do when I lost a comrade in a blizzard down south, and (without a fact or a clue to guide me) sent a score of men in a broad circle from the camp (like spokes in a wheel) to find him or follow back on their tracks.