We parted on very satisfactory terms.
I went on the pier, and under the wooden shelter where I had sat last night I saw a group--the superintendent of the police with one of the officers, the manager of the pier, the keepers of the different stalls, a few strangers, and Jim, the boatman, who had found the little bundle dripping wet.

Oh, Heaven, the pathos of it! On the wooden seat lay the little bundle, so white, so fair, like a small, pale rose-bud, and by it, in a wet heap, lay the black and gray shawl.

I knew it in one moment; there was not another word to be said; that was the same shawl I had seen in the woman's hands when she dropped the little bundle into the sea--the self-same.

I had seen it plainly by the bright, fitful gleam of the moon.

The superintendent said something to me, and I went forward to look at the little child--so small, so fair, so tender--how could any woman, with a woman's heart, drop that warm, soft little nursling into the cold, deep sea?
It was a woman who killed Joel--a woman who slew Holofernes--but the woman who drowned this little, tiny child was more cruel by far than they.
"What a sweet little face!" said the superintendent; "it looks just as though it were made of wax." I bent forward.