the matron,
nodding carelessly towards her husband; 'the mother this nurse had
robbed.'

'In life?' asked Monks.

'In death,' replied the woman, with something like a shudder. 'She
stole from the corpse, when it had hardly turned to one, that which the
dead mother had prayed her, with her last breath, to keep for the
infant's sake.'

'She sold it,' cried Monks, with desperate eagerness; 'did she sell it?
Where? When? To whom? How long before?'

'As she told me, with great difficulty, that she had done this,' said
the matron, 'she fell back and died.'

'Without saying more?' cried Monks, in a voice which, from its very
suppression, seemed only the more furious. 'It's a lie! I'll not be
played with. She said more. I'll tear the life out of you both, but
I'll know what it was.'

'She didn't utter another word,' said the woman, to all appearance
unmoved (as Mr. Bumble was very far from being) by the strange man's
violence; 'but she clutched my gown, violently, with one hand, which
was partly closed; and when I saw that she was dead, and so removed the
hand by force, I found it clasped a scrap of dirty paper.'

'Which contained--' interposed Monks, stretching forward.

'Nothing,' replied the woman; 'it was a pawnbroker's duplicate.'

'For what?' demanded Monks.

'In good time I'll tell you.' said the woman. 'I judge that she had
kept the trinket, for some time, in the hope of turning it to better
account; and then had pawned it; and had saved or scraped together
money to pay the pawnbroker's interest year by year, and prevent its
running out; so that if anything came of it, it could still be
redeemed. Nothing had come of it; and, as I tell you, she died with
the scrap of paper, all worn and tattered, in her hand. The time was
out in two days; I thought something might one day come of it too; and
so redeemed the pledge.'

'Where is it now?' asked Monks quickly.

'_There_,' replied the woman. And, as if glad to be relieved of it,
she hastily threw upon the table a small kid bag scarcely large enough
for a French watch, which Monks pouncing upon, tore open with trembling
hands. It contained a little gold locket: in which were two locks of
hair, and a plain gold wedding-ring.

'It has the word "Agnes" engraved on the inside,' said the woman.

'There is a blank left for the surname; and then follows the date;
which is within a year before the child was born. I found out that.'

'And this is all?'