Then after a moment she asked, "Judge Kirtley, how does it happen that such an infamous law was ever put upon our Statute Books?" "That is a long story, Margaret, or rather there are links in the chain that go back a long way. It doesn't take much time in the telling." He was glad to turn her thoughts into a slightly different channel. "You see, when Maryland ceded the District of Columbia to the United States for a permanent seat of government, it was provided by an act of Congress that all the laws of the State of Maryland, as they then existed, should be and continued in force in the District, or at least such part of it as had been ceded by that State." "Did Maryland have such a law?" asked Margaret, incredulously. "Yes, Maryland and a good many of the other states--the older ones particularly. They have been gradually modifying these laws in a number of them, but--" "How did they ever happen to have such a law in the first place?" she interrupted. "I did not dream that such things would be tolerated in this age." "The explanation is simple enough. When the English emigrants came to this country and founded commonwealths they brought with them ready-made the language, the laws, and the institutions of the mother country. These had only to be modified and adapted to changed conditions that they found here." "Then this is really an English law?" "An English law dating back to the time of Charles II. It was originally framed to prevent the Catholics from obtaining possession of the children of a Protestant father, I believe." "It sounds as if it might have gone back to the Dark Ages," said Margaret, indignantly, "or to barbarism! It seems so strange that I have never heard of it before." "Not at all. Most people do not know about laws until they are touched by them." "You say some of the states have repealed this law. Why did they do it?" "Oh, they found it contrary to the spirit of the age, I suppose. I guess the women's rights people prodded them up a little, maybe." "Judge Kirtley," said Margaret, after a pause in which her mind had gone from women's rights to women's wrongs, "do you suppose many women are forced to give up their children under this law?" "Not many of your kind, Margaret. Perhaps not many of any kind. But it is a thing well known that many brutal men know of this law and hold it as a club over their wives. A lazy, good-for-nothing negro, for instance, will often make his wife support him, here in the District where there are so many of them, by using this threat." "Oh, it is cruel! cruel!" she cried, her voice trembling with indignation. "Margaret, I think, judging from your face just now, that if you were a man you would say of this law, as Lincoln did of slavery, 'If I ever get a chance at that institution _I'll hit it hard_!'" "I would! I would! If I were a man. But what can a woman do but suffer!" "Some of them learn to fight," he said, "enough at least to defend their young."