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 She shook her head, and her lips set angrily. "No! She wished to take my life from me. They would do everything for Hyacinthe—only I must give him up! Well, I have borne ten thousand things; but that is what nobody must ask a mother to do. I will do anything—anything in this world; but I will not do that."

"I don't understand," he said, puzzled again. "I thought"

"She wished to take him away from me; that is all. The first day we were again in Algiers both those women came to me and they propose' to me that they will adopt Hyacinthe. I am to be no longer his mother."

"What? Why, I thought"

She sprang up, not noticing that he had spoken. "They have taken everything from me—my friends and all this time that I have given them—and now they want to take all that I live for! They will give him everything except his mother and me everything except my son. No, no! That was the end of those people for me!" And again she strode across the room, lifting up her arms on high. "No!" she cried loudly. "Nobody can be my child's mother except me. There are other things beside money that he