A fine boy! I
deeply regret; but you will be thankful that your wife is spared."

The tears flooded Robert's eyes, but they were tears of joy, not grief.
At that moment he had no room in his mind for the little son whom he had
never seen. After the blackness of those hours when he had seen a
vision of life without Jean, he could do nothing but rejoice and thank
God.

But Vanna's heart contracted with a spasm of sympathy. Poor Jean! Poor
Jean! What a bitter awakening would be hers!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

And Jean lay on her bed, bruised, aching, incredibly fatigued. She
asked no questions, displayed no interest; with eyelids closed over
sunken eyes, pale lips apart, she lay like a broken flower, indifferent
to everything in heaven or earth. At intervals of a few hours the
doctor came and felt her pulse; at times some one put the tube of a
feeding-cup to her mouth, and she swallowed, shuddering with distaste;
at intervals it was dark, at intervals it was light. Once an urgent
voice spoke in her ear telling of Robert's presence, and she opened her
eyes and tried to smile. All her life long Jean remembered that smile.
An effort was required of her; she realised as much, and with all the
force of her feeble will endeavoured to twist her lips into the
looked-for greeting. They were stiff as iron, heavy as lead; she
struggled wearily--was it for hours she struggled?--and at last
mechanically felt them part. She smiled, and Robert cried! It seemed a
poor reward, and she shut her eyes in weary despair. At times she
slept, to awake with a gasp and a cry. Always she was falling--falling
from the high gallery of a cathedral, from the top of a pile of
scaffolding, from the topmost crag of a precipice. Then some one wiped
her brow, and spoke soothing words, and she cried, weakly, without
cause.

Four days of nightmare, then at last rest--a real sleep, without dreams
or fear; peace in the troubled frame, appetite instead of nausea. The
fire burned brightly on the hearth, the curtains were drawn, nurse was
drinking tea comfortably beside the fire. The old homely, everyday
life, how good and natural it looked after the black, nightmare dreams.

"Nurse!" whispered Jean weakly, "where is my baby?"

The white-capped nurse leapt to her feet; it must be uncomfortable,
thought Jean, to feel those stiff, white bows for ever pinned beneath
one's chin. She came to the