‘Oh, Lizzie, don’t be so hard! I am not the unfeeling creature you take me for. It is only fear of my parents that makes me shrink from confessing the truth. They would kill me, Lizzie, if they knew it. They would not let me live to disgrace them.’ ‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Lizzie. ‘They would do nothing of the sort. They would reproach you as they have me, and you richly deserve it. But tell the truth whilst you are about it, Maraquita. Say that you have no feeling either for your child or its father (whoever he may be), and I may believe what you say.’ ‘But you are wrong,’ interposed Quita eagerly. ‘I love him dearly, and I should have loved _it_ also, if I had not been afraid. And I can prove it to you, Lizzie, for I have come here to-night to see the baby, and I shall come as often as I can without exciting suspicion. Where is she? Let me see her at once.’ ‘What baby?’ demanded Liz, with affected ignorance. ‘Oh, Liz! how can you ask? Why, my own baby, of course! The one you have in charge.’ ‘I thought you denied this morning that you were a mother, Quita?’ ‘I was obliged to do so. What could I say, with mamma or papa liable to come in at any moment? You might as well have asked me to cut my own throat. But here, alone with you, I can say anything! I confess it is mine, Lizzie, and that I knew all about it from the beginning. I told your dear father everything; and he promised that he and you should stand my friends, and prevent my secret from being published to the world.’ ‘I have heard all this before,’ said Lizzie, still engaged upon her sewing. ‘And now you will let me see her, won’t you? You will let me hold her in my arms for a little while? I must not stay long, for fear that meddlesome old Jessica should come after me. You will take me to my baby at once, Lizzie?’ ‘No,’ replied the Doctor’s daughter firmly. ‘What do you mean? Isn’t she here?’ ‘Yes; but you will not see her.’ ‘How dare you keep me from her? She is mine, not yours.’ ‘You did not say so this morning.’ ‘Ah, but then I was mad!’ ‘Are you prepared, then, to take your child back to the White House with you? Will you confess the lie of which you have been guilty to your parents, and exonerate me in their eyes of the charge you have brought against me?’ Maraquita shrank backward. ‘Oh, Liz! that is too much. I should destroy all my prospects at a blow by such an admission. Besides, it has nothing to do with the matter. All I want is to see the child. Surely you will not refuse so trifling a request?’ ‘I do refuse it.’ ‘But you have no right to do so.’ ‘By your own account, Maraquita, I have every right. You declared before your mother that this child was mine. Therefore I will keep it as such, and I refuse to let you see her.’ ‘And I am determined not to leave the bungalow till I have done so!’ cried Quita, rushing towards the bedroom door. But Lizzie had reached it before she did, and stood with her back against the panels.