am."

Lynette looked at W. Keyse, and it seemed to her that the little sallow
Cockney face had Fate in it. A sudden terror whitened her to the lips. She
cried out in a voice that had lost all its sweetness:

"You have deceived me in saying he was well. Something has happened to
him! He is very ill, or----?"

She could not utter the word. Instinctively her eyes went past the
stammering man to the woman who hung behind his elbow. And the wearer of
the nodding peonies cried out:

"No, no! The Doctor isn't dead--or ill, to call ill!" She turned angrily
upon her husband. "See wot a turn you've give 'er," she snapped. "Why
couldn't you up and speak out?"

W. Keyse was plainly nonplussed. He took off the giant cap with the brass
ventilators, and turned it round and round, looking carefully inside it.
But he found no eloquence therein.

"Why did I bring a skirt, I arsk, if I'm to do the patter?" He addressed
himself in an audible aside to Mrs. Keyse. "You might as well 'ave stopped
at 'ome with the nipper," he added, complainingly, "if I ain't to 'ave no
better 'elp than this!"

"You mean kindly, I know." Lynette tried to smile in saying it. "There is
trouble that you are here to break to me; I understand that very well.
Please tell me without delay, plainly what has happened? I am
very--strong! I shall not faint--if that is what you are afraid of?"

She caught her breath, for the woman broke out into dry sobbing and cried
out wildly:

"Oh, come back to 'im! Come back, if you're a woman! Gawd, Who made 'im,
knows as 'ow 'e can't bear no more! Oh! if my 'art's so wrung by what I've
seen him suffer, think what he's bore these crooil weeks an' months!"

The peonies rocked in the gale of Emigration Jane's emotion. Her
hard-worked hands went out, entreating for him; her dowdy little figure
seemed to grow tall, so impressive was the earnestness of her appeal.

"Him and you are toffs, and me and Keyse are common folks.... Flesh and
blood's the syme, though, only covered wiv different skins. An' Human
Nature's Human Nature, 'owever you fake 'er up an' christen 'er! An' Love
must 'ave give an' take of Love, or else Love's got to die! Burn a lamp
wivout oil, and see wot 'appens. It goes out!--You're left in the
dark!"--Her homely gesture, illustrating the homely analogy, seemed to
bring down blackness. Lynette hung speechless upon her fateful lips.

"--Then, like as not, you'll overturn the table gropin'. 'Smashed!' you'll