Who will go
between her and me until a happier time.'
"'I am only a rough engineer; the child will be raised to consider
herself well off, perhaps rich.'
"'Adopt her. I will stay in the background; make her expenditures and
her education what you like. I will trust you.'
"'I can't do that.'
"'You are single; your life is hard; I have money enough for us all. Let
us go to the Sandwich islands, anywhere, and commence life anew. The
little one will know no other father, and all inquiry will be stopped.'
"'I couldn't think of it, my dear madam; it's too easy; it's like
pulling jerkwater passenger--I like through freight.'
"Well, John, to make a long story short, the interview ended about here,
and several more got to about the same place. There were a thousand
things I could not help but admire in that woman, and I liked her better
the more I knew her. But it wan't love; it was a sort of an admiration
for her love of the child, and the nerve she displayed in its behalf.
But I shrank from becoming her husband or companion, although I think
she loved me, in the end, better than she ever did anybody.
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