"You must not--it is for the coroner," protested Etienne. "I know the
law--I have drag up so many."

"My besetting sin is curiosity," declared the young man, his calm
impertinence unruffled. He pulled the wet paper from the noose of the
cord. "We'll read this together."

"I cannot read," confessed the rack-tender. "You shall read it to me."
His little black eyes gleamed now with curiosity of his own. "I shall be
glad to hear. The coroner he never read to me."

The water had spread the ink and spotted the paper, but Farr was able to
decipher the missive. He read aloud:


"'My head has grown bad since my husband died. It is grief, the awful
heat, the work at the looms. They said if I would give my little girl
away she could go to the country and grow well. But I could not give her
up for ever. I could not earn the money to send her to board. I could
not earn the money except to buy us bread here in the tenement block.
And my bad head has been telling me it's best to kill myself and take
her with me. So I kill myself before my head grows so bad that I might
take away my little girl's life. It belongs to her and I hope she may
be happy. Will somebody take her and give her happiness? It is wicked to
kill myself, but my head is so bad I cannot think out the right way to
do. This is the key to the room in Block Ten.

"'MRS. ELISIANE SIROIS.

"'Her name is Rosemarie.'"