“It was meant to sink, you see, sir,” continued the man, with rough energy; “it was never meant to be caught.  But the great God, He is above all, and He knows the little one was not to sink to the bottom, like lead.  It is true, sir, and murder will out.”

“But is nothing known?” I asked.  “Surely such a thing could never be done without some one seeing or knowing something about it.”

“I am afraid, sir, no one knows but the one who did it.  Some woman, sir, had dressed the little thing—­a man would never have thought of the soft woolen cap.  And I can tell you another thing, sir—­a man would never have killed a child like that; not that I am upholding men—­some of them are brutes enough—­but I do not think any man would throw a little babe into the water.  When a woman is bad, she is bad, and there is nothing vile enough for her.”

I though of the beautiful and desperate face.  Heaven grant that she might have nothing to do with this!  And yet—­the black and gray shawl!

“Whereabouts was it?” I asked.

He pointed with his hand to the very spot where she had stood.

“Just there,” he said.  “It was there the little bundle was thrown, and there, just below the line of the jetty, it was caught by the hooks.”

The identical spot where she had stood.  Oh, beautiful, despairing face, what was hidden underneath your mask of stone?

“You should go on the pier, sir, and see for yourself,” said the old man.  “The superintendent of the police is there now; but they will never find out who did that.  Women are deep when they are wicked, and the one who did this was wicked enough.”

There was a slight suggestion on the part of the little group as to the morning being a dry one.  We parted on very satisfactory terms.

I went on the pier, and under the wooden shelter where I had sat last night I saw a group—­the superintendent of the police with one of the officers, the manager of the pier, the keepers of the different stalls, a few strangers, and Jim, the boatman, who had found the little bundle dripping wet.  Oh, Heaven, the pathos of it!  On the wooden seat lay the little bundle, so white, so fair, like a small, pale rose-bud, and by it, in a wet heap, lay the black and gray shawl.  I knew it in one moment; there was not another word to be said; that was the same shawl I had seen in the woman’s hands when she dropped the little bundle into the sea—­the self-same.  I had seen it plainly by the bright, fitful gleam of the moon.  The superintendent said something to me, and I went forward to look at the little child—­so small, so fair, so tender—­how could any woman, with a woman’s heart, drop that warm, soft little nursling into the cold, deep sea?  It was a woman who killed Joel—­a woman who slew Holofernes—­but the woman who drowned this little, tiny child was more cruel by far than they.

“What a sweet little face!” said the superintendent; “it looks just as though it were made of wax.”