"No, no, no; my God, no!" half-shrieked Agnes, as she caught at his hands; "don't think that, sir." "Then you _have_ some womanly feeling left," said Mr Sterne. "Towards her, perhaps, yes." "And your child?" "Yes, yes, yes," wailed Agnes; "but don't torture me. What do you know?--what do you wish me to do?--why do you follow me?" "What is your name?" said the curate sternly; "and how came you to know her?" and he pointed again towards Bennett's-rents. "Don't ask me, I cannot tell you," sobbed Agnes. "But you bring misery on her and on her home. You have some hold upon her?" "No, no, no," sobbed Agnes hysterically; "none, none; but she knows who I am, and pities me and my poor child. God's blessing on her!" "Amen!" muttered the curate under his breath, and his companion sobbed so convulsively that she could not speak, while, as they stood in the dark entry, a policeman came slowly by, flashed the light of his bull's-eye upon them for an instant, recognised the curate and passed on, and, till he was out of hearing, Agnes Hardon clutched the curate's arm. "You are not afraid of the world and it's opinions," she said bitterly; "it cannot hurt you. Stay with me and I will tell you all, for I believe you mean me well." The curate bowed his head. "I am miserable, wretched," she sobbed, "and what can I do? That man in the court has my poor child, and for some reason he will not give it up. I have tried to get it away again and again, even to stealing it, sir-- my own little one; but something has always prevented me, and he watches me till, hardened as I am, I am afraid of him, for he comes over my spirit like the shadow of some great horror about to crush me. I love my child, my pure little angel, for--O sir, have pity on me, have pity!--I am its mother, and what else have I here to cling to? Can you not think how I must love it though I left it with that poor dead woman? But she had a mother's heart, and was kind to it always. I could see it in my darling's blue eyes even when it racked my heart; but I was glad, though it would not come to me, and called her mother. I was happy then, for did not she--she you say I injure--watch over it for me, and tell me of its bright eyes and sunny hair and winning ways, while, when I have listened to her, the tears have come gently to quench the fire in my brain, and I could think of home and the past, while she--she who loves my little one--lets me weep upon her breast, and I forget for a while that I am lost, lost, lost for ever!"