Margaret turned to the lawyer who still held the paper in his hand. "You see I am very ignorant of legal terms," she said, with a pitiful little attempt at apology,--"I have never had anything to do with the law--and I do not quite understand what 'custody' means here. Is it that Mr. De Jarnette is by this codicil appointed Philip's guardian--to take care of his property?" The attorney did not look up from the papers he was fingering. Indeed, as she looked from one to another in her perplexity Margaret saw only averted faces. There was not one that was ready to look into her anxious, pleading eyes. "Mrs. De Jarnette," said the attorney, moistening his dry lips, "this means something more serious than that, or rather it would if Mr. De Jarnette were inclined to insist upon the letter of the law--which, of course, he will not do--" with a rather imploring glance in the direction of the gentleman referred to. Mr. De Jarnette sat unmoved and immovable, not showing by the change of a muscle that he heard the appeal, and the lawyer went on. "Custody in this sense does not mean the guardianship of property, but of the person." There was another silence. Then Margaret,--eyes staring, breath coming hard, hands clenched, and face white as death, spoke. "Do you mean," she said slowly and in a voice that trembled with suppressed passion, "that my child has been willed away from me?--from me--his mother? That this man--or any man--can have the right by law to take him from me?... _My baby?_... Oh, no! you don't mean this!... I was mad to think of it. But you see--I am so inexperienced." "But, Mrs. De Jarnette," returned the lawyer, feeling his task harder even than he had feared, "I am obliged to tell you--much as I regret to do so--that it is true. There is a most unfortunate law in this District--not to call it by a harsher name--which gives a father the right to will away his child even from its mother. That law your late husband unfortunately knew about, and in a moment of great anger, and, as he claimed, of great provocation, he used that knowledge as we have seen." "To stab the woman he had sworn to cherish," muttered Judge Kirtley, under his breath. Then, reaching for the will, he asked, sternly, "Were all the requirements of the law complied with in regard to witnesses?" "Yes, sir. I am sorry to say that nothing has been omitted that would give validity to the will--or rather to this codicil." "Then I am constrained to say," blurted the Judge, "that it was a dastardly thing!"