happened--what he did? Thinking the paper must have come from one of my
husband's pockets, he smoothed it out as well as he could and folded it
up and pinned it to the sleeve of Dallam's blue serge and sent it here.
My maid found it when she was undoing the bundle before hanging up the
clothes in Dallam's closet, and she brought it to me, thinking, I
suppose, it was a bill from the cleaner's shop, and I read it. Simple
enough explanation, isn't it, when you know the facts?"

"Simple," he agreed, "and yit at the same time sort of wonderful too.
And whut did you do when you read it?"

"I was stunned at first. I tried at first not to believe it. But I
couldn't deceive myself. Something inside of me told me that it was
true--every word of it. I suppose it was the woman in me that told me.
And somehow I knew that you had written it, although really that part
was not so very hard a thing to figure out, considering everything. And
somehow--I can't tell you why though--I was morally sure that after you
had written it some other person had forbidden your making use of it in
any way, and instinctively--anyhow, I suppose you might say it was by
instinct--I knew that it had reached me, of all persons, by accident and
not by design.

"I tried to reach you--you were gone away. But I did reach that funny
little man Pedaloski by telephone, and found out from him why he had
pinned the paper on Dallam's coat. I did not tell my husband about it.
He doesn't know yet. I don't think I shall ever tell him. For two days,
judge, I wrestled with the problem of whether I should send for my
mother and tell her that now I knew the thing which all her life she had
guarded from me. Finally I decided to wait and see you first, and try to
find out from you the exact circumstances under which the paper was
written, and the reason why, after writing it, you crumpled it up and
hid it away.

"And then--and then my baby came, and since she came my scheme of life
seems all made over. And oh, Judge Priest"--she reached forth a white,
weak hand and caught at his--"I have you and my baby and--yes, that
little man to thank that my eyes have been opened and that my heart has
melted in me and that my soul has been purged from a terrible selfish
deed of cruelty and ingratitude. And one thing more I want you to know:
I'm not really sorry that I was born as I was. I'm glad, because--well,
I'm just glad, that's all. And I suppose that, too, is the woman in me."