The Dash for Khartoum | Page 7

begins to talk, and it will be a satisfaction to know that he is in good hands, with a far better look-out than I could have given him. I will see my wife, sir, and let you know in half an hour."
"Do you think that she will consent, Humphreys?"
"I am sure she will," the sergeant said briefly, and then added, "There is nothing else she could do," and saluting he went out of the room.
"He suspects his wife of having done it on purpose," Dr. Parker said, speaking for the first time since the sergeant had entered the room. "I don't say he knows it, but he suspects it. Did you notice how decidedly he said that she would consent? And I fancy up to now she has had her own way in everything."
"Well, what do they say?" Mrs. Humphreys asked as her husband entered the door. He told her shortly the offer that had been made. She laughed scornfully. "A likely thing that! So they are to have both children, and I am not to be allowed even to see them; and they are to pick and choose as to which they like to say is theirs, and we are to be shouldered out of it altogether! It is just as bad for me not to know which is my boy as it is for that woman; but they are to take the whole settlement of things in their hands, my feelings to go for nothing. Of course you told them that you would not let them do such a thing?"
"I did not tell them anything of the sort. I told them that I accepted their proposal, and that I could answer for your accepting it too."
"Then you were never more wrong in your life, John Humphreys!" she said angrily; "I won't consent to anything of the sort. Luck has thrown a good thing in our hands, and I mean to make the most of it. We ought to get enough out of this to make us comfortable for life if we work it well. I did not think that you were such a soft!"
"Soft or not soft, it is going to be done as they propose," her husband said doggedly. "It is burden enough as it is--we have lost our child. Not that I care so very much about that; there will be time enough for more, and children do not add to the comfort of close little quarters like these. But whether we like it or not, we have lost the child. In the next place we shall never hear the end of it in the regiment, and I shall see if I cannot manage to get transferred to another. There will be no standing the talk there will be."
"Let them talk!" his wife said scornfully. "What do we care about their talk!"
"I care a great deal," he said. "And I tell you why, because I know what they will say is true."
"What do you mean?" she asked quickly.
"I mean, Jane, that I know you mixed up those children on purpose."
"How dare you say so!" she exclaimed making a step forward as if she would strike him.
"I will tell you why I say so. Because I went to the drawer this morning before going to parade, and I saw some of Mrs. Clinton's baby's night-gowns in it. Yes, I see they are all in the wash-tub now; but they were there this morning, and when I heard you say you had put the child into one of our baby's night-gowns because it had no clean ones of its own, I knew that you were lying, and that you had done this on purpose."
The woman was silent a moment and then burst out, "You are a greater fool than ever I thought you! I did tell a lie when I gave that reason for putting the child into our baby's gown. When I took the two clean ones out of the drawer I did not notice until I put them on that they were both ours, and then I thought it was not worth while changing again just as the child had got quiet and comfortable. Then when I found what had happened in the morning, I had to make some excuse or other, and that occurred to me as the best. When I came back I did put them all into the wash-tub, clean and dirty, in case any one should come here to see about them. What harm was there in that, I should like to know?"
"You have acknowledged you have told one lie over it; after that you may say what you like, but you need not expect me to believe you."
"Well, why don't you go at once and tell them that you believe that