“If you ask the question in a proper manner, I shall have no objection to answer,” said Mrs. Dinneford, with a dignified and slightly offended air; “but my daughter is assuming rather, too much.”

“Mrs. Bray, the servant said.”

“No, Mrs. Gray.”

“I understood her to say Mrs. Bray.”

“I can’t help what you understood.”  The mother spoke with some asperity of manner.  “She calls herself Gray, but you can have it anything you please; it won’t change her identity.”

“What did she want?”

“To see me.”

“I know.”  Edith was turning away with an expression on her face that Mrs. Dinneford did not like, so she said,

“She is in trouble, and wants me to help her, if you must know.  She used to be a dressmaker, and worked for me before you were born; she got married, and then her troubles began.  Now she is a widow with a house full of little children, and not half bread enough to feed them.  I’ve helped her a number of times already, but I’m getting tired of it; she must look somewhere else, and I told her so.”

Edith turned from her mother with an unsatisfied manner, and went up stairs.  Mrs. Dinneford was surprised, not long afterward, to meet her at her chamber door, dressed to go out.  This was something unusual.

“Where are you going?” she asked, not concealing her surprise.

“I have a little errand out,” Edith replied.

This was not satisfactory to her mother.  She asked other questions, but Edith gave only evasive answers.

On leaving the house, Edith walked quickly, like one in earnest about something; her veil was closely drawn.  Only a few blocks from where she lived was the office of Dr. Radcliffe.  Hither she directed her steps.

“Why, Edith, child!” exclaimed the doctor, not concealing the surprise he felt at seeing her.  “Nobody sick, I hope?”

“No one,” she answered.

There was a momentary pause; then Edith said, abruptly,

“Doctor, what became of my baby?”

“It died,” answered Doctor Radcliffe, but not without betraying some confusion.  The question had fallen upon him too suddenly.

“Did you see it after it was dead?” She spoke in a firm voice, looking him steadily in the face.

“No,” he replied, after a slight hesitation.

“Then how do you know that it died?” Edith asked.

“I had your mother’s word for it,” said the doctor.

“What was done with my baby after it was born?”

“It was given out to nurse.”

“With your consent?”

“I did not advise it.  Your mother had her own views in the case.  It was something over which I had no control.”

“And you never saw it after it was taken away?”

“Never.”

“And do not really know whether it be dead or living?”

“Oh, it’s dead, of course, my child.  There is no doubt of that,” said the doctor, with sudden earnestness of manner.