“Mine is the guilty part-it is me who needs forgiveness!” speaks Madame Montford, pressing the hand of the forlorn woman, as the tears stream down her cheeks.  She has unburdened her emotions, but such is the irresistible power of a guilty conscience that she finds her crushed heart and smitten frame sinking under the shock-that she feels the very fever of remorse mounting to her brain.

“Be calm, be calm-for you have suffered, wandered through the dark abyss; truly you have been chastened enough in this world.  But while your heart is only bruised and sore, mine is stung deep and lacerated.  The image of that child now rises up before me.  I see her looking back over her chequered life, and pining to know her birthright.  Mine is the task of seeking her out, reconciling her, saving her from this life of shame.  I must sacrifice the secrets of my own heart, go boldly in pursuit of her—­” She pauses a moment.  There is yet a thin veil between her and society.  Society only founds its suspicions upon the mystery involved in the separation from her husband, and the doubtful character of her long residence in Europe.  Society knows nothing of the birth of the child.  The scandal leveled at her in Charleston, was only the result of her own indiscretion.  “Yes,” she whispers, attempting at the same time to soothe the feelings of the poor disconsolate woman, “I must go, and go quickly-I must drag her from the terrible life she is leading;—­but, ah!  I must do it so as to shield myself.  Yes, I must shield myself!” And she puts into the woman’s hand several pieces of gold, saying:  “take this!—­to-morrow you will be better provided for.  Be silent.  Speak to no one of what has passed between us, nor make the acquaintance of any one outside the home I shall provide for you.”  Thus saying, she recalls Mr. Detective Fitzgerald, rewards him with a nostrum from her purse, and charges him to make the woman comfortable at her expense.

“Her mind, now I do believe,” says the detective, with an approving toss of the head, “her faculties ’ll come right again,—­they only wants a little care and kindness, mum.”  The detective thanks her again and again, then puts the money methodically into his pocket.

The carriage having returned, Madame Montford vaults into it as quickly as she alighted, and is rolled away to her mansion.

CHAPTER XLIV.

In which is recorded events the reader may not have expected.

While the events we have recorded in the foregoing chapter, confused, hurried, and curious, are being enacted in New York, let us once more turn to Charleston.

You must know that, notwithstanding our high state of civilization, we yet maintain in practice two of the most loathsome relics of barbarism-we lash helpless women, and we scourge, at the public whipping-post, the bare backs of men.