"But you said that you knew my
mother?"
Again the woman made that dry, rattling sound in her chest. "Your mother
never saw him but once," she answered grimly. "She never saw him but
once, and that was for a quarter of an hour on the night they were
taking her to prison. I would never have told but for Julius," she
added. "I would never have told if they hadn't tried to make out that I
knew him, and that he was really your father. It would ruin him, they
said, and that was what they wanted. But when they bring it out, with
the paper they got me to sign, I want you to know that it is a lie--that
I did it because I'd have died if I hadn't got hold of the drugs--"
"But he is my father," repeated Patty quite steadily--so steadily that
her voice was without colour or feeling.
The only reply that came was a gasping sound, which grew louder and
louder, with the woman's struggle for breath, until it seemed to fill
the room and the night outside and even the desolate sky. As she lay
back, with the arm of the old cripple under her head and her streaming
hair, the spasm passed like a stain over her face, changing its waxen
pallor to the colour of ashes, while a dull purplish shadow encircled
her mouth.
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