ey went upstairs, and the mother stood open-eyed while the squire's
restless look gathered in the details of the room, the youth's face, as
he lay back on his pillows, whiter than they, exhausted and yet
refreshed by the sponging with vinegar and water which the mother had
just been administering to him; the bed, the gaps in the worm-eaten
boards, the spots in the roof where the plaster bulged inward, as though
a snake would bring it down; the coarse china shepherdesses on the
mantel-shelf, and the flowers which Catherine had put there the day
before. He asked a few questions, said an abrupt word or two to the
mother, and they tramped downstairs again and into the street. Then
Robert took him across to the little improvised hospital, saying to him
on the threshold, with a moment's hesitation,--

'As you know, for adults there is not much risk, but there is always
some risk----'

A peremptory movement of the squire's hand stopped him, and they went
in. In the downstairs room were half-a-dozen convalescents, pale,
shadowy creatures, four of them under ten, sitting up in their little
cots, each of them with a red flannel jacket drawn from Lady Helen's
stores, and enjoying the breakfast which a nurse in white cap and apron
had just brought them. Upstairs, in a room from which a lath-and-plaster
partition had been removed, and which had been adapted, warmed and
ventilated by various contrivances to which Robert and Meyrick had
devoted their practical minds, were the 'four anxious cases.' One of
them, a little creature of six, one of Sharland's black-eyed children,
was sitting up, supported by the nurse, and coughing its little life
away. As soon as he saw it, Robert's step quickened. He forgot the
squire altogether. He came and stood by the bedside, rigidly still, for
he could do nothing, but his whole soul absorbed in that horrible
struggle for air. How often he had seen it now, and never without the
same wild sense of revolt and protest! At last the hideous membrane was
loosened, the child got relief, and lay back white and corpse-like, but
with a pitiful momentary relaxation of the drawn lines on its little
brow. Robert stooped and kissed the damp tiny hand. The child's eyes
remained shut, but the fingers made a feeble effort to close on his.

'Mr. Elsmere,' said the nurse, a motherly body, looking at him with
friendly admonition, 'if you don't go home and rest you'll be ill too,
and I'd like to know who'll be the bette