"
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. The child should not be left a
burden and drag on his hands, he declared--it must go to the work-house.
But patient Margaret clasped her arms round his neck, and whispered to
him that the child was so clever, so pretty, she would be a gold-mine to
them in the future--only let them get away from Ashwood, and go to
London, where she could be well trained and taught. He laughed a
sneering laugh, for which, had he been any other than her husband, she
would have hated him.
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