Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/165

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VII. The Other Woman's Child

LADY OSBORNE regarded the woman before her with contempt and anger.

"I have told you before," she said haughtily, "I did not wish you to speak to the child again."

The woman flushed, and spoke hotly.

"It is hard," she muttered, "not to be allowed to speak to him and to see him for a little time, after all the months I had of him."

"It is my wish," returned Lady Osborne; "and that must be enough."

"For his sake," the woman went on, "I put my child aside; I gave him what God had sent me for my own. My boy was weaned that yours might have his nourishment. For months you cared nothing about him, and left me to do for him what you could not. And now the woman who gave the strength to his little body and started the growth in his limbs is forbidden to see him or speak to him."

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