I've had an offer for them.
Good-bye--good-bye, Mrs. Doyle"--he was at the door--"I hope you and
Monsieur Barbille will decide what's best for the child without
difficulty."
The door opened quickly and shut again, and Jean Jacques was alone with
the woman and the child. "What's best for the child!"
That was what the Young Doctor had said. Norah stopped rocking the cradle
and stared at the closed door. What had this man before her, this tramp
habitant of whom she had heard, of course, to do with little Zoe in the
cradle--her little Zoe who had come just when she was most needed; who
had brought her man and herself close together again after an
estrangement which neither had seemed able to prevent.
"What's best for the child!" How did the child in the cradle concern this
man? Then suddenly his name almost shrieked in her brain. Barbille--that
was the name on the letter found on the body of the woman who died and
left Zoe behind--M. Jean Jacques Barbille.
Yes, that was the name. What was going to happen? Did the man intend to
try and take Zoe from her?
"What is your name--all of it?" she asked sharply. She had a very fine
set of teeth, as Jean Jacques saw mechanically; and subconsciously he
said to himself that they seemed cruel, they were so white and
regular--and cruel. The cruelty was evident to him as she bit in two the
thread for the waistcoat she was mending, and then plied her needle
again.
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