at poor babe.
Save her from the workhouse! Don't let them make a pauper of her!" She
sank prostrate at his feet, and beat her hands in frenzy on the floor.
"You want to save my guilty soul," she reminded him furiously. "There's
but one way of doing it. Save my child!"

He raised her. Her fierce tearless eyes questioned his face in a mute
expectation dreadful to see. Suddenly, a foretaste of death--the death
that was so near now!--struck her with a shivering fit: her head dropped
on the Minister's shoulder. Other men might have shrunk from the contact
of it. That true Christian let it rest.

Under the maddening sting of suspense, her sinking energies rallied for
an instant. In a whisper, she was just able to put the supreme question
to him.

"Yes? or No?"

He answered: "Yes."

A faint breath of relief, just audible in the silence, told me that she
had heard him. It was her last effort. He laid her, insensible, on the
bed, by the side of her sleeping child. "Look at them," was all he said
to me; "how could I refuse?"

CHAPTER V. MISS CHANCE ASSERTS HERSELF.

The services of our medical officer were required, in order to hasten
the recovery of the Prisoner's senses.

When the Doctor and I left the cell together, she was composed, and
ready (in the performance of her promise) to listen to the exhortations
of the Minister. The sleeping child was left undisturbed, by the
mother's desire. If the Minister felt tempted to regret what he had
done, there was the artless influence which would check him! As we
stepped into the corridor, I gave the female warder her instructions to
remain on the watch, and to return to her post when she saw the Minister
come out.

In the meantime, my companion had walked on a little way.

Possessed of ability and experience within the limits of his profession,
he was in other respects a man with a crotchety mind; bold to the verge
of recklessness in the expression of his opinion; and possessed of a
command of language that carried everything before it. Let me add that
he was just and merciful in his intercourse with others, and I shall
have summed him up fairly enough. When I joined him he seemed to be
absorbed in reflection.

"Thinking of the Prisoner?" I said.

"Thinking of what is going on, at this moment, in the condemned cell,"
he answered, "and wondering if any good will come of it."

I was not without hope of a good result, and I said so.

The Doctor disagreed with me. "