t were a book of strange characters in which she
wished to find a particular passage. She fixed her eyes upon each small
cheap photograph in turn, as if trying hard to remember who it
represented, and whether it was, or was not, the one she wanted. Caius
looked on amazed.

At length, about the middle of the book, she came to a portrait at which
she stopped, and with a look of cunning took out another which was
hidden under it, and thrust it at Caius.

"It's for you," she said; "it's mine, and I'm going to die, and it's you
I'll give it to."

She looked and spoke as if the proffered gift was a thing more precious
than the rarest gem.

Caius took it, and saw that it was a picture of a baby girl, about three
years old. He had not the slightest doubt who the child was; he stood by
the window and examined it long and eagerly. The sun, unaided by the
deceptive shading of the more skilled photographer, had imprinted the
little face clearly. Caius saw the curls, and the big sad eyes with
their long lashes, and all the baby features and limbs, his memory
aiding to make the portrait perfect. His eager look was for the purpose
of discovering whether or not his imagination had played him false; but
it was true what he had thought--the little one was like Josephine.

"I shall be glad to have it," he said--"very glad."

"I had it taken at Montrose," said the poor mother; and, strange to say,
she said it in a commonplace way, just as any woman might speak of
procuring her child's likeness. "Day, he was angry; he said it was waste
of money; that's why I give it to you." A fierce cunning look flitted
again across her face for a moment. "Don't let him see it," she
whispered. "Day, he is a bad father; he don't care for the children or
me. That's why I've put her in the water."

She made this last statement concerning her husband and child with a
nonchalant air, like one too much accustomed to the facts to be
distressed at them.

For a few minutes it seemed that she relapsed into a state of dulness,
neither thought nor feeling stirring within her. Caius, supposing that
she had nothing more to say, still watched her intently, because the
evidences of disease were interesting to him. When he least expected it,
she awoke again into eagerness; she put her elbows on the table and
leaned towards him.

"There's something I want you to do," she whispered. "I can't do it any
more. I'm dying. Since I began dying, I can't get into the wate