and then what would
become of me with a strange man in the house?"

Such an argument was too petty to touch his excited mind.

"I don't care for your master and mistress. If your master is a man, he
must feel for me poor shipwrecked sailor that I am--kept for years a
prisoner amongst savages, always, always, always thinking of my wife and
my home--dreaming of her by night, talking to her, though she could not
hear, by day. I loved her more than all heaven and earth put together.
Tell me where she is, this instant, you wretched woman, who salved over
her wickedness to her, as you do to me."

The clock struck ten. Desperate positions require desperate measures.

"If you will leave the house now, I will come to you to-morrow and tell
you all. What is more, you shall see your child now. She lies sleeping
up-stairs. O, sir, you have a child, you do not know that as yet--a
little weakly girl--with just a heart and soul beyond her years. We have
reared her up with such care: We watched her, for we thought for many a
year she might die any day, and we tended her, and no hard thing has come
near her, and no rough word has ever been said to her. And now you, come
and will take her life into your hand, and will crush it. Strangers to
her have been kind to her; but her own father--Mr. Frank, I am her nurse,
and I love her, and I tend her, and I would do anything for her that I
could. Her mother's heart beats as hers beats; and, if she suffers a
pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is happy, it is her mother
that smiles and is glad. If she is growing stronger, her mother is
healthy: if she dwindles, her mother languishes. If she dies--well, I
don't know: it is not every one can lie down and die when they wish it.
Come up-stairs, Mr. Frank, and see your child. Seeing her will do good
to your poor heart. Then go away, in God's name, just this one night-to-
morrow, if need be, you can do anything--kill us all if you will, or show
yourself--a great grand man, whom God will bless for ever and ever. Come,
Mr. Frank, the look of a sleeping child is sure to give peace."

She led him up-stairs; at first almost helping his steps, till they came
near the nursery door. She had almost forgotten the existence of little
Edwin. It struck upon her with affright as the shaded light fell upon
the other cot; but she skilfully threw that corner of the room into
darkness, and let the light fall on the sleeping Ailsie. The chi