"We both wrote to David asking him to come home to his wife and baby." She looked away guiltily. For a full minute, Bansemer did not speak.
"The result?" he demanded.
"He came back last month."
"Does he know the truth?"
"No, and with God's help, he never shall! It's my only salvation!" she exclaimed emotionally. "He thinks she is his baby and—and—-" The tears were on her cheeks, now. "I worship him, Mr. Bansemer! Oh, how good and sweet he has been to me since he came back! Now, don't you see why I must adopt this child, and why he must never know? If he learned that I had deceived him in this way, he would hate me to my dying day."
The infant was awake and staring at him with wide, blue eyes.
"And you want me to handle this matter so that your husband will be none the wiser?"
"Oh, Mr. Bansemer," she cried; "it means everything to me! All depends on this baby. I must adopt her, or the asylum people won't let me keep her. Can't it be done so quickly that he'll never find it out?"
"How many people know that the child is not yours?"
"My sister and the authorities at the asylum; not another soul."