The hands which Ross still clasped were tightened painfully. For half a moment he was silent. When he did speak, it was almost in a whisper, and his voice was hoarse. “Elizabeth! What have you done with our child?” Mrs. Lambert wrenched her hands from the passionate grip fastened on them, and stood up in wild agony. “Our child! Oh, Father of heaven! is there no mercy for me? Have I not suffered enough?” The woman had no strength to stand. As grass goes down beneath the scythe, her limbs gave way, and her face fell forward on the cushions of the sofa. Ross bent over her. “Elizabeth!” “Leave me! You have torn the vulture from my heart—let it bleed to death; for, in a little while, I, like my child, will be beyond human reach! God knows all that I have done, and all I have suffered.” Ross knelt down by the woman, and laid his hand on her shoulder. Her suffering overpowered all sense of wrong in his bosom. The thing which she had done seemed less hideous when her grief filled the room, as with the wail of a mother bereft. “Our child is not dead, Elizabeth! I come to tell you so!” The woman lifted her face. “Not dead!” “Let that awful thought haunt you no longer. The child is alive. Not an hour ago I held her in my arms. God spared her life, and you, wretched woman, a great crime.” The woman shuddered. “God help me! God forgive me! I was sorely tempted.” CHAPTER LXX. OUR CHILD. A moment after these words left her lips, Mrs. Lambert started up. The idea that her child lived had seized upon her with force; for the first time, her face, still colorless, was radiant. “She is alive!—your child and mine! Alive! and you have found her for me! A child given to my bosom—a sin lifted from my soul! Man! Angel! Husband! Let me fall down and worship you!” “First thank God that an awful sin has been lifted from your conscience.” “I do! I do! But the child—where is she? Who is she? Will you let me see her—touch her—bless her? Oh, will you?” “You have seen her.” “Where? When?” “At my sister’s house. She is known as Eva Laurence.” Once more the woman sunk to the sofa mute and pallid. “Laurence was the policeman you spoke with just before you turned down to the river. He followed you. He saw you leave the infant upon the rock, where you had carried it; watched as you crept away through the woods; reluctantly, he thought, but still you went, leaving the child to its fate.”