A bitterness that she could not control shook Doris's voice. She shrank from touching the exquisite detachment of Sister Angela by the truth, and yet she must have as much sympathy as possible and, certainly, cooeperation. "Sister, this child should never have been born!" The words reached where former words had failed. A flush touched Angela's white face--it was like sunrise on snow. Then, after a pause: "Did--Meredith--think that?" A growing sternness gave Doris hope that she might be saved the details that were like poison in her blood. "Yes. Protected by--by what is law--George Thornton----" But Angela raised her thin, transparent hand commandingly. It was as if she were staying the torrents of wrong and shame that threatened to deluge all that she had gained by her life of renunciation and repression--and yet in her clear eyes there gleamed the understanding of the depths. "May God have mercy upon--the child!" was what she said, and by those words she took her stand between past wrong and hope of future justice. "You must take this child, Doris," she said. "All that you know and feel but make the course imperative and inevitable." "Sister, how can I--feeling as I do?" "Can you afford not to? Can you leave it--to such a man?" "But, Sister, you do not know him. If I should conquer my aversion and take the child, if I succeeded in loving it--he would bide his time and claim it. The law that made this horrible thing possible covers his claim to the child." Angela drooped back in her chair. She looked old and beaten. "He must not have the child," she murmured. "It's the only chance for the salvation of Meredith's little girl. He _shall_ not have it!" Doris bent toward the fire holding her cold, clasped hands to the heat. Suddenly she turned. "I am growing nervous," she said, "I thought I heard someone pressing against the window--I thought I saw--a shadow drift outside in the moonlight." Angela started and sat upright. Every sense was alert--she was remembering her promise to old Becky! "I wish," she said, haltingly, "I wish I had consulted Father Noble. I have undertaken too much." "Consulted him about what, Sister?" Doris was touched by the quivering voice and strained eyes; she set her own trouble aside. Again that pressing sound, and the wind swirling the dead leaves against the house. "About a little deserted mountain child upstairs. I have promised to find a home for it, but I cannot manage such things any more--I am too old." The words came plaintively, as if defending against implied neglect. Doris's eyes grew deep and concerned. "A deserted child?" she repeated. In the feverish haste and trouble of the past few days the ordinary life of Ridge House had held no part. It seemed to be claiming its rights now, pushing her aside.