es he asked me to be
good enough to step up to the counter.

"And what is your baby's name, please?" he asked.

I told him. He dipped his pen in his metal ink-pot, shook some drops
back, made various imaginary flourishes over his book and wrote:

"Mary Isabel."

"And now," he said, with another smile, "the full name, profession, and
place of residence of the father."

I hesitated for a moment, and then, making a call on my resolution, I
said:

"Martin Conrad, seaman, deceased."

The young clerk looked up quickly.

"Did you say Martin Conrad, ma'am?" he asked, and as well as I could for
a click in my throat I answered:

"Yes."

He paused as if thinking; then with the same flourish as before he wrote
that name also, and after he had done so, he twisted his face about to
the old man, who was sitting behind him, and said, in a voice that was
not meant to reach me:

"Extraordinary coincidence, isn't it?"

"Extraordinary!" said the old man, who had lowered his newspaper and was
looking across at me over the rims of his spectacles.

"And now," said the young clerk, "your own name and your maiden name if
you please."

"Mary O'Neill."

The young clerk looked up at me again. I was holding baby on my left arm
and I could see that his eye caught my wedding ring.

"Mary Conrad, maiden name O'Neill, I presume?" he said.

I hesitated once more. The old temptation was surging back upon me. But
making a great pull on my determination to tell the truth (or what I
believed to be the truth) I answered:

"No, Mary O'Neill simply."

"Ah!" said the young clerk, and I thought his manner changed instantly.

There was silence for some minutes while the young clerk filled up his
form and made the copy I was to carry away.

I heard the scratching of the young clerk's pen, the crinkling of the
old man's newspaper, the hollow ticking of a round clock on the wall,
the dull hum of the traffic in the streets, and the thud-thud-thudding
in my own bosom.

Then the entry was read out to me and I was asked to sign it.

"Sign here, please," said the young clerk in quite a different tone,
pointing to a vacant line at the bottom of the hook, and I signed with a
trembling hand and a feeling of only partial consciousness.

I hardly know what happened after that until I was standing in the open
vestibule, settling baby on my arm afresh for my return journey, and
telling myself that I had laid a stigma upon my child which would rem