She shook her head slowly, wonderingly. "I can conceive no reason, no possible reason. Oh, I have made mistakes, if that is what you mean. But they were the mistakes of a brute mother robbed. A tigress when she sees a cobra hanging near does not wait to have the Jungle's Lord High Magistrate pass upon the case! She springs and falls upon it, or--despairing of that--snatches up her cub and flees with it to a place of safety. _I did that--no more!_ I was a woman--I could not strike--and so I caught up my child and fled. The Judge says I broke the law,--" she threw back her head with the old imperious gesture--"I say I kept it--Nature's law, implanted by a greater than judge or jury. But, humanly speaking, it was a mistake--I grant you that. I should have stayed and trusted to the chance that a stone might melt, have knelt, a suppliant at your feet, saying, 'Oh, sir, I recognize your right! The law, of course, is just! But--give a poor girl back her baby!'" Richard De Jarnette sat motionless before her, not taking his eyes from her face, not indicating in any way that he felt her thrusts. If this was acting it was good of its kind. Dropping her tone of bitter satire she went on. "Yes, a mistake--but one that I shall not make again. I was then scarcely more than child myself. A child fighting against a strong man and the law.... But let it pass. Now I am a woman, full-grown and old, old! A few years like these would crowd eternity." She stopped a moment and then went on. She was not through yet. "Richard De Jarnette, you have might on your side,--the will--a wicked, wicked one; a law--so infamous that its very wording reeks to high heaven; and the decision of the court. Against all these I put my woman's patience and the right--and I defy you! I shall win! This time I shall be patient,--oh, so patient,--and tireless as the insects on a coral reef. It will be long,--perhaps I may be gray-headed when it comes--but some day--" again she threw her head back, not raising her voice above its former low pitch, but speaking with incisive utterance that cut the air--"some day _I shall have my child_. For it is right. And in the end right wins." She made a movement to pass out, but he stopped her by a gesture. "One moment, please. There is something concerning Philip about which I would like to speak to you. Will you not be seated?" "Thank you, I will stand." He raised his brows slightly and went on.