"I shall be glad to have it," he said--"very glad."
"I had it taken at Montrose," said the poor mother; and, strange to say,
she said it in a commonplace way, just as any woman might speak of
procuring her child's likeness. "Day, he was angry; he said it was waste
of money; that's why I give it to you." A fierce cunning look flitted
again across her face for a moment. "Don't let him see it," she
whispered. "Day, he is a bad father; he don't care for the children or
me. That's why I've put her in the water."
She made this last statement concerning her husband and child with a
nonchalant air, like one too much accustomed to the facts to be
distressed at them.
For a few minutes it seemed that she relapsed into a state of dulness,
neither thought nor feeling stirring within her. Caius, supposing that
she had nothing more to say, still watched her intently, because the
evidences of disease were interesting to him. When he least expected it,
she awoke again into eagerness; she put her elbows on the table and
leaned towards him.
"There's something I want you to do," she whispered. "I can't do it any
more. I'm dying. Since I began dying, I can't get into the water to look
for her. My baby is in the water, you know; I put her in. She isn't
dead, but she's there, only I can't find her. Day told me that once you
got into the water to look for her too, but you gave it up too easy, and
no one else has ever so much as got in to help me find her.
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