eling.

The only reply that came was a gasping sound, which grew louder and
louder, with the woman's struggle for breath, until it seemed to fill
the room and the night outside and even the desolate sky. As she lay
back, with the arm of the old cripple under her head and her streaming
hair, the spasm passed like a stain over her face, changing its waxen
pallor to the colour of ashes, while a dull purplish shadow encircled
her mouth. For a few minutes, so violent was the struggle for air, it
appeared to Corinna that nothing except death could ever quiet that
agonized gasping; but while she waited for the end, the sound became
gradually fainter, and the woman spoke quite plainly, though with an
effort that racked not only her strangled chest, but her entire body.
Each syllable came so slowly, and now and then so faintly, that there
were moments when it seemed that the breath in that tormented body would
not last until the words had been spoken.

"You were going on three years old when he first saw you. They were
taking me away to prison--that's over now, and it don't matter--but I
hadn't any chance--" The panting began again; but by force of will, the
woman controlled it after a minute, and went on, as if she were
measuring her breath inch by inch, almost as if it were a material
substance which she was holding in reserve for the end. "Your father
died the first year I married him, and things went from bad to
worse--there's no use going over that, no use--They were taking me to
prison from the circus, and I had you in my arms, when Gideon Vetch came
by and saw me--" Again there was a pause and a desperate battle for air;
and again, after it was over, she went on in that strangled whisper,
while her eyes, like the eyes of a drowning animal, clung neither to
Patty nor Corinna, but to the austere face of the old hunchback. "'What
am I to do with the child?' I asked, and he stepped right out of the
circus crowd, and answered 'Give me the child. I like children'--" An
inarticulate moan followed, and then she repeated clearly and slowly.
"Just like that--nothing more--'Give me the child. I like children.'
That was the first time I ever saw him. He had come to see some of the
people in the circus, and I've never seen him since then except in the
Square. The trial went against me, but that's all over. Oh, I'm tired
now. It hurts me. I can't talk--"

She broke into terrible coughing; and the old woman, dropping her
knitting for