She showed the quilt with loving pride and praise, but the story of it she kept in her heart, among her prayers.  Frank Sunderline never knew more than the fair fabric and color, and the name of the giver, told him.  Frank Sunderline scarcely knew so much as these two women did, of the unanalyzed secrets of his own life.

Luclarion waited till all this was over, and Desire Ledwith had come back from Ray Ingraham’s rooms to hers, leaving Hazel and Sylvie among the fascinations of new crockery and bridal tin pans, before she said anything about a very sad and important thing she had to tell her and consult about.  She took her into her own little sitting-room to hear the story, and then up-stairs, to see the woman of whom the story had to be told.

“It was Mr. Tipps, the milkman, came to me yesterday with it all,” said Luclarion.  “He’s a good soul, Tipps; as clever as ever was.  He was just in on his early rounds, at four o’clock in the morning,—­an awful blustering, cold night, night before last was,—­and he was coming by Graves Alley, when he heard a queer kind of crazy howling down there out of sight.  He wouldn’t have minded it, I suppose, for there’s always drunken noise enough about in those places, but it was a woman’s voice, and a baby’s crying was mixed up with it.  So he just flung his reins down over his horse’s back, and jumped off his wagon, and ran down.  It was this girl,—­Mary Moxall her name is, and Mocks-all it ought to be, sure enough, to finish up after that pure, blessed name so many of these miserables have got christened with; and she was holding the child by the heels, head down, swinging it back and for’ard, as you’d let a gold ring swing on a hair in a tumbler, to try your fortune by, waiting till it would hit and ring.

“It was all but striking the brick walls each side, and she was muttering and howling like a young she-devil over it, her eyes all crazy and wild, and her hair hanging down her shoulders.  Tipps flew and grabbed the baby, and then she turned and clawed him like a tiger-cat.  But he’s a strong man, and cool; he held the child back with one hand, and with the other he got hold of one of her wrists and gave it a grip,—­just twist enough to make the other hand come after his; and then he caught them both.  She spit and kicked; it was all she could do; she was just a mad thing.  She lost her balance, of course, and went down; he put his foot on her chest, just enough to show her he could master her; and then she went from howling to crying.  ‘Finish me, and I wouldn’t care!’ she said; and then lay still, all in a heap, moaning.  ‘I won’t hurt ye,’ says Tipps.  ’I never hurt a woman yet, soul nor body.  What was ye goin’ to do with this ‘ere little baby?’ ‘I was goin’ to send it out of the hell it’s born into,’ she said, with an awful hate in the sound of her voice.  ‘Goin’ to kill it!  You wouldn’t ha’ done that?’ ’Yes, I would.  I’d ’a done it, if I was hanged for it the next minute.  Isn’t it my business that ever it was here?’