I heard the Judge move often enough, but I did not know he was on his feet until I looked up at last, and there he was standing in front of me, with his wild eyes staring down at the child. He pointed at the little thing with his long forefinger. "Julianna," said he. "You are mad, sir," I cried. "No," said he. "My wife! It must be done to save her happiness. Yes! To save her life." "To save her?" I repeated after him. "Yes, a lie," he whispered bitterly. "She has not seen the baby for weeks and weeks." "She could never know," I cried, understanding what he meant. "That is true, sir. No one could ever tell. The two of them were not different anyway. But you--! You could never forget." "I know," said he. "Yet it is my happiness against hers, and I have made up my mind. No living soul can ever learn of this. I am safe there. Chalmers will never come back. Nor could he ever know if he did. And so--" "But the blood," I said, trembling with the thought. "What of that?" "God help us!" he answered, beating his knuckles on his jaws. "How can I say? But, come what may, I have decided! That child is now Julianna! Give her to me!" He took the infant in his arms again, pressing it close to him, as if it were a nettle which must be grasped with full courage to avoid the pricks of its thousand barbs. "What are you?" he whispered to the new Julianna. "What will you be? What is your birthright?" Well I remember his words, spoken in that half-broken voice; they asked questions which have not been answered yet, I tell you! And yet little attention I paid to them at the moment, for the mischief Welstoke had taught me crept around me again. I could not look at the Judge with his youth dropped off him, his voice and face ten years older and his eyes grown more tender by the grief and love and sacrifice of an hour, without turning away from him. Why? Because a voice from the grave was whispering to me as cool as wet lettuce, to prove that the good or bad of a soul does not end with death. "Didn't I tell you that skeletons hang in all closets?" it said. "Now, after this night, the Judge, to use a good old phrase, is quite in your power. Bide your time, my dear. We women will come into our own again." "Excuse me, sir," I said, aloud. "There was a locket on the child's neck. Wouldn't it be well to remove it? It is marked with a name that must be forgotten." He looked at me gratefully as he fumbled at the trinket with his long, smoke-blackened fingers, while I trembled with my desire to have it safe in my own hands. It was the one thing left to prove the truth. I believe my arms were stretched out for it, when there came a knock on the door. "You want some breakfast," said a voice. "You poor tired people!"