The scandal, after so many years lying hidden, would now most certainly be bruited abroad. Some men would have laughed it to scorn, and faced it with brazen effrontery; but Richard Pellet was a religious man--a patron of philanthropic societies--even now upon his table lay half-a-dozen annual reports with his name thereon as steward or committee-man, for all men to read. Why, his very sober beneficent look carried weight, and he was always placed in the front rank upon the platform at Exeter Hall meetings. In fact, in May, during the meetings, he adopted white cravats and frills. And now, in spite of money, care, secrecy, this matter would be spread abroad. He could hear it already; and to hide this example of his cruel love of greed, had he dared, and could have hidden the crime, he would have struck down the patient sufferer whom he had treated with such a mingling of cruelty and neglect, dead at his feet, with as little compunction as he had already shown in sending her staggering to the wall. But the wife of long ago, whose reason had gone astray years before, the soft eyes, the pale face, and trembling lips were here no more; and Richard Pellet, as he shrank from her, felt himself to be almost helpless in the hands of one whose strength was augmented by her position, for he dared not raise his voice. He knew, too, that now the time had gone when he could command, and he must try subterfuge, and get her away abroad, where she would be safely kept. He blamed himself now that he had not placed her in an asylum, but he recalled his reason--it would have been too public a proceeding; and in these fleeting moments the question came, were the gold and position he had won worth the price that he had paid? As he stood there in her grasp, his mind was made up, and he said quietly, "Sit down." "No--no--no!" was the hasty reply, as if she dreaded his influence. "I want my child: give me my child, and let me go." "But, Ellen, this is madness and folly," he whispered. "You know it is not here. He told you that it was dead, did he?" "Yes," she cried, angrily; "but it was not true. You told him to say so. Where is she now?" "Look here!" said Richard, writing an address upon a card--that of one of the boarding--houses in the neighbourhood. "Take this and go and wait there till I come, and we will go and see about it. But, for my sake, do not make a disturbance here--it would be ruin to me." The poor creature, half reft of her senses, gazed earnestly in his face for a few moments, while the angry light faded from her eye. In her tigress-like rage for her lost little one, if met by anger she was ready to dare, urged by her maternal instinct; but these gentle words disarmed her resentment, and falling on her knees at Richard Pellet's feet, she burst into tears, sobbing as she begged of him to let her have her child. "Yes, yes! you shall; only get up," said Richard. "It shall all be made right, only go now."