you're thinking. I know it all. I know it all."

"You are not human," whispered the Judge.

Can you say that certain words call up magic? I do not know. But those
words worked a miracle. In a second, like something bursting out of its
shell, the Monty Cranch I had treasured in my heart tossed off the
murderer, the drunkard, the worthless wretch who had been throttling him
and holding him locked up somewhere in that worn and tired body, and
came up to the surface like a drowning man struggling for life.

"Human?" he said in a clearing voice. "Human? Am I human? My God! that
is the curse of all of us--we're human. To be human is to be a man. To
be human is to be born. To be human is to have the blood and bone and
brain that you didn't make or choose. To be human is to be the son of
another without choice. To be human is to be the yesterday of your blood
and marked with a hundred yesterdays of others' evil."

He jumped up. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot.

"Am I responsible for what I am?" he roared. "Are any of us?"

The Judge looked frightened, I thought.

"Blood is blood," cried Monty, with the veins standing out on his
forehead. "That's why I brought the baby here. I wanted to kill her.
Blood is blood. There's mine in that chair--and it is me, and I am my
father and he was his father, and there's no escape, do you hear? I
wanted to kill her because I loved her, loved her, loved her!"

He fell back in the chair and covered his face with his hand and wept
like a child.

I looked at the Judge and I could have believed he was a bronze statue.
He never moved an eyelash. I could not see him breathe. He seemed a
metal figure and he frightened me and the child frightened me, because
it slept through it all so calm, so innocent--a little quiet thing.

"Well, Chalmers," said the Judge at last, "what do you mean to do?
You're going away. Are you going to leave your daughter here?"

Monty's head was bowed over so his face did not show, but I saw him
shiver just as if the Judge's words had blown across him with a draft as
cold as ice.

"I'm going to Idaho," he said. "I'm going away to-night. I've got to
leave the baby. You know that. Put it in an institution and don't let
the people know who its father was. Some day my blood will speak to it,
Judge, but half my trouble was knowing what I was."

"By inheritance," said the Judge.

"By inheritance," said Monty.

"You love this little daughter?" the Judge whispe