She would go away and take Madaline with her--keep her where she could love her--where she could bring her up as her own child, and lavish all the warmth and devotion of her nature upon her.

She never once thought that in acting thus she was doing a selfish, a cruel deed--that she was taking the child from her father, who of all people living had the greatest claim upon her.
"He may have more money than I have," thought poor, mistaken Margaret, "but he cannot love her so much; and after all love is better than money." It was easy to manage her husband.

She had said but little to him at the time she undertook the charge of little Madaline, and he had been too indifferent to make inquiries.

She told him now, what was in some measure quite true, that with the doctor's death her income had ceased, and that she herself not only was perfectly ignorant of the child's real name, but did not even know to whom to write.

It was true, but she knew at the same time that, if she would only open the box of papers, she would not be ignorant of any one point; for those papers she had firmly resolved never to touch, so that in saying she knew nothing of the child's identity she would be speaking the bare truth.
At first Henry Dornham was indignant.