rsuit of nymph by faun. No! It was
hers alone. And a sudden feverish longing to get back to it overpowered
all other thought. This longing grew in her so all night that at
breakfast she told her father. Swallowing down whatever his feeling may
have been, he said:

"Very well, my child; I'll come up with you."

Putting her into the cab in London, he asked:

"Have you still got your key of Bury Street? Good! Remember, Gyp--any
time day or night--there it is for you."

She had wired to Fiorsen from Mildenham that she was coming, and she
reached home soon after three. He was not in, and what was evidently her
telegram lay unopened in the hall. Tremulous with expectation, she ran
up to the nursery. The pathetic sound of some small creature that cannot
tell what is hurting it, or why, met her ears. She went in, disturbed,
yet with the half-triumphant thought: 'Perhaps that's for me!'

Betty, very flushed, was rocking the cradle, and examining the baby's
face with a perplexed frown. Seeing Gyp, she put her hand to her side,
and gasped:

"Oh, be joyful! Oh, my dear! I AM glad. I can't do anything with baby
since the morning. Whenever she wakes up, she cries like that. And till
to-day she's been a little model. Hasn't she! There, there!"

Gyp took up the baby, whose black eyes fixed themselves on her mother in
a momentary contentment; but, at the first movement, she began again her
fretful plaint. Betty went on:

"She's been like that ever since this morning. Mr. Fiorsen's been in
more than once, ma'am, and the fact is, baby don't like it. He stares at
her so. But this morning I thought--well--I thought: 'You're her father.
It's time she was getting used to you.' So I let them be a minute; and
when I came back--I was only just across to the bathroom--he was comin'
out lookin' quite fierce and white, and baby--oh, screamin'! And except
for sleepin', she's hardly stopped cryin' since."

Pressing the baby to her breast, Gyp sat very still, and queer thoughts
went through her mind.

"How has he been, Betty?" she said.

Betty plaited her apron; her moon-face was troubled.

"Well," she said, "I think he's been drinkin'. Oh, I'm sure he has--I've
smelt it about him. The third day it began. And night before last he
came in dreadfully late--I could hear him staggerin' about, abusing the
stairs as he was comin' up. Oh dear--it IS a pity!"

The baby, who had been still enough since she lay in her m