From the first instant of the child's entrance into the room, Madame Vaughan had roused herself from her usual attitude. The sound of the child's pattering feet seemed to act on her with electrical influence. She raised her head from out her hands; she sat up erect, bright, observant. The corner in which she sat was dark, and no one was in the habit of taking any notice of her. So she sat, watching the shrinking child. She heard the mocking laugh with which the nurse sneered at the little one's terror, she heard the harsh tones in which the mother chid the child, and saw the blow which followed on the words. Then she made two springs forward, and the next minute had the woman on the ground, and was grappling at her throat. The attendants sprang upon her, released the woman from her grasp, and led her shrieking to her cell. "My child, my child! why did she strike my child?" were the words which she screamed forth; almost the first which those in the asylum had ever heard her utter; so, at least, the nurse told the proprietor, who, with other assistants, male as well as female, was speedily on the spot. "She used to sit as quiet as quiet, never opening her mouth, as you know very well, sir," said the woman, "and was sittin' just as usual, so far as I know, when my sister here, as I was showing round, fetched her little gal a smack on the head because she wouldn't come on; and then Vaughan springs at her like a wild-beast, and wanted to tear the life out of her, she did, a murderin' wretch!" "Had she ever said anything about a child before?" asked the proprietor. "Never said nothing about anybody, and certingly nothing about a child," replied the nurse. "And it was because she saw this child struck that she burst out, and she's hollerin' about the child now--is that it?" "Jest so, sir," replied the nurse, looking at a mark of teeth on her hand, and shaking her head viciously in the direction in which the patient had been led away. "That's it, Agar," said the proprietor; "I thought we should get at it some day. Couldn't get anything out of the cove I first saw, and the lawyers were as tight as wax. 'You'll get your money,' they says. 'We're responsible for that,' they says, 'and that ought to be enough for you.' They wouldn't let on, any of 'em, what it was that had upset her at first; but I knew it would come out sooner or later, and it's come out now, though. She's gone off her head grievin' after a kid, and no two ways about it." "Ah!" said Mr. Agar, who was a man of few words; "shouldn't wonder. Question is, what's to be done with her now? Mustn't be allowed to kick up these wagaries, you know; we shall have the neighbours complainin' again. Screamed and yelled and bit and fisted away like a good un, she did. We ain't had such a rumpus since the Tiger's time."