Mrs. Presty hazarded a guess at what was going on in her daughter’s mind.  “Now your husband has written to you,” she said, “are you beginning to think Randal’s opinion may be worth considering again?” With her eyes still on Randal’s letter, Mrs. Linley merely answered:  “Why don’t you begin?” Mrs. Presty began as follows, leaving out the familiarity of her son-in-law’s address to his wife.

“I hope and trust you will forgive me for venturing to write to you, in consideration of the subject of my letter.  I have something to say concerning our child.  Although I have deserved the worst you can think of me, I believe you will not deny that even your love for our little Kitty (while we were living together) was not a truer love than mine.  Bad as I am, my heart has that tender place left in it still.  I cannot endure separation from my child.”

Mrs. Linley rose to her feet.  The first vague anticipations of future atonement and reconciliation, suggested by her brother-in-law, no longer existed in her mind:  she foresaw but too plainly what was to come.  “Read faster,” she said, “or let me read it for myself.”

Mrs. Presty went on:  “There is no wish, on my part, to pain you by any needless allusion to my claims as a father.  My one desire is to enter into an arrangement which shall be as just toward you, as it is toward me.  I propose that Kitty shall live with her father one half of the year, and shall return to her mother’s care for the other half If there is any valid objection to this, I confess I fail to see it.”

Mrs. Linley could remain silent no longer.

“Does he see no difference,” she broke out, “between his position and mine?  What consolation—­in God’s name, what consolation is left to me for the rest of my life but my child?  And he threatens to separate us for six months in every year!  And he takes credit to himself for an act of exalted justice on his part!  Is there no such thing as shame in the hearts of men?”

Under ordinary circumstances, her mother would have tried to calm her.  But Mrs. Presty had turned to the next page of the letter, at the moment when her daughter spoke.

What she found written, on that other side, produced a startling effect on her.  She crumpled the letter up in her hand, and threw it into the fireplace.  It fell under the grate instead of into the grate.  With amazing activity for a woman of her age, she ran across the room to burn it.  Younger and quicker, Mrs. Linley got to the fireplace first, and seized the letter.  “There is something more!” she exclaimed.  “And you are afraid of my knowing what it is.”

“Don’t read it!” Mrs. Presty called out.

There was but one sentence left to read:  “If your maternal anxiety suggests any misgiving, let me add that a woman’s loving care will watch over our little girl while she is under my roof.  You will remember how fond Miss Westerfield was of Kitty, and you will believe me when I tell you that she is as truly devoted to the child as ever.”