elp her to escape to you, would render you liable to prosecution for
kidnapping--a criminal offence under the Penal Code." Any one of us
would gladly go to prison if it would save the child; but the trouble
is, it would not: for the law could only return her to her lawful
guardians from whose hold we unlawfully detached her. We, not they,
would be in the wrong; they did nothing unlawful in only preparing the
cup. Does someone say that we put the case unfairly--that the law does
not forbid us to warn the child, it only forbids us to snatch her away
when the cup is merely being offered her? But remember, in our part of
India at least, these cups are not given in public. The preparation is
public enough, the bare tasting is public too; but the cup in its
fulness is given in private, and once given, the poison works with
stealthy but startling rapidity. Warn the child before she has drunk of
it, and she does not understand you. Warn her after she has drunk, and
the poison holds her from heeding.

Besides, to be very practical, what is the use of warning if we may only
warn? Suppose our one isolated word weighs with the child against the
word of mother or adopted mother, and all who stand for home to her;
suppose she says (she would very rarely have the courage for any such
proposal, but suppose she does say it): "May I come to you? and will you
show me the way, for it is such a long way and I do not know how to find
it? I should be so frightened, alone in the night" (the only time escape
would be possible), "for I know they would run after me, and they can
run faster than I!" What may we say to her? What may I say to the
Harebell supposing she asks me this question? She is only six, and there
are six long miles over broken country between her home and ours. We
could not find it ourselves in the dark. But supposing she dared it all,
and an angel were sent to guide her, have we any right to protect her?
None whatever. If there are parents, or a parent, they or she have the
right of parentage; if an adopted mother, the right of adoption.[F]

We know that the law is framed to protect the good, and the rights of
parentage cannot be too carefully guarded; but to one who has not a
legal mind, but only sees a little girl in danger of her life, and has
to stand with hands tied by a law intended to deal with totally
different matters, it seems strange that things should be so. This is
not the moment (if ever there is such a moment) t