She clasped her hands together and moaned, so dreadful was the struggle in her between passions and temptations and fears.  The mother’s heart bade her trust him; yet could she trust him to go and return?

‘You have the cunning of a devil,’ she groaned, ’and as little heart!  Let you go, when you only want the chance of deserting me again!’

‘You’ll have to be quick,’ he replied, holding his watch in his hand, and smiling at the compliment in spite of his very real anxiety.  ‘There may be no choice in a minute or two.’

’I’ll go with you now; I’ll follow you where you go to get the money!’

’No, you won’t.  Either you trust me or you refuse.  You’ve a free choice, Clara.  I tell you plainly I want little Jack, and I’m not going to lose him if I can help it.’

‘Have you any other children?’

‘No—­never had.’

At least he had not been deceiving her in the matter of Jack.  She knew that he had constantly come home at early hours only for the sake of playing with the boy.

‘I’ll go with you.  No one shall see that I’m following you.’

’It’s impossible.  I shall have to go post haste in a cab.  I’ve half-a-dozen places to go to.  Meet me on Westminster Bridge at one.  I may be a few minutes later, but certainly not more than half-an-hour.’

He went to the window and looked uneasily up and down the street.  Clara pressed her hands upon her head and stared at him like one distracted.

‘Where is she?’ came from her involuntarily.

‘Don’t be a fool, woman!’ he replied, walking to the door.  She sprang to hold him.  Instead of repulsing her, he folded his arm about her waist and kissed her lips two or three times.

‘I can get thousands of pounds,’ he whispered.  ’We’ll be off before they have a trace.  It’s for Jack’s sake, and I’ll be kind to you as well, old woman.’

She had suffered him to go; the kisses made her powerless, reminding her of a long-past dream.  A moment after she rushed to the house door, but only to see him turning the corner of the street Then she flew to the bedroom.  Jack was ill of a cold—­she was nursing him in bed.  But now she dressed him hurriedly, as if there were scarcely time to get to Westminster by the appointed hour.  All was ready before eleven o’clock, but it was now raining, and she durst not wait with the child in the open air for longer than was necessary.  But all at once the fear possessed her lest the police might come to the house and she be detained.  Ignorant of the law, and convinced from her husband’s words that the stranger in rags had some sinister aim, she no sooner conceived the dread than she bundled into a hand-bag such few articles as it would hold and led the child hastily from the house.  They walked to a tramway-line and had soon reached Westminster Bridge.  But it was not half-past eleven, and the rain descended heavily.  She sought a small eating-house not far from the Abbey, and by paying for some coffee and bread-and-butter, which neither she nor Jack could touch, obtained leave to sit in shelter till one o’clock.