s something in her which
love has never reached?" Then, reproaching herself because she had left
the bed for a minute, she went back again and bent over the unconscious
child, her whole slender body curving itself passionately into an
embrace. His face was ashen white, except where the skin around his
mouth was discoloured with a faint bluish tinge. His flesh, even his
bones, appeared to have shrunk almost away in twenty-four hours. It was
impossible to imagine that he was the rosy, laughing boy, who had
crawled into her arms only two nights ago. The disease held him like
some unseen spiritual enemy, against which all physical weapons were as
useless as the little toys of a child. How could one fight that sinister
power which had removed him to an illimitable distance while he was
still in her arms? The troubled stupor, which had in it none of the
quiet and the restfulness of sleep, terrorized her as utterly as if it
had been the personal spirit of evil. The invisible forces of Life and
Death seemed battling in the quivering air within that small circle of
light.

While she bent over him, he stirred, raised himself, and then fell back
in a paroxysm of coughing. The violence of the spasm shook his fragile
little body as a rough wind shakes a flower on a stalk. Over his face
the bluish tinge spread like a shadow, and into his eyes there came the
expression of wondering terror which she had seen before only in the
eyes of young startled animals. For an instant it seemed almost as if
the devil of disease were wrestling inside of him, as if the small
vital force she called life would be beaten out in the struggle. Then
the agony passed; the strangling sound ceased, and he grew quiet, while
she wiped the poison from his mouth and nostrils, and made him swallow a
few drops of milk out of a teaspoon.

At the moment, while she fell on her knees by his bedside, it seemed to
her that she had reached that deep place beyond which there is nothing.

* * * * *

"You've pulled him through. We'll have him out of bed before many days
now," said the old doctor at daybreak, and he added cheerfully, "By the
way, your husband came in the front door with me. He wanted to rush up
here at once, but I'm keeping him away because he is obliged to go back
to the bank."

"Poor Oliver," said Virginia gently. "It is terrible on him. He must be
so anxious." But even while she uttered the words, she was conscious of