ir and cheeks
with feeble hands, as if to be sure it was really Kate.

"I knew you would come," she said at last, with a great sigh.

"Come! Oh, my darling, why didn't you send for me sooner?"

"Because I wanted to surprise you, Mummy. Because I knew when you saw
baby, you'd forgive me, you wouldn't care, nothing would matter, except
him.... But now there isn't any baby!" The weak voice suddenly rose to a
wail. "There isn't any baby! Nothing has turned out as I had planned.
Oh, Mummy! He was going to be so little, and sweet, and fat--nobody who
saw him _could_ have stayed angry with me!... And I never heard him cry,
I never even felt his tiny hand clutching my finger!... It's because I
was wicked," she moaned, tossing about so that Kate caught the waving
hands and held them tight. "God wanted to get even with me. So He took
the thing I wanted most in all the world. He took my baby. Oh, but that
was cruel of Him, no matter how bad I'd been! Wasn't it? Wasn't it,
Mummy?"

"Hush, child!" whispered Kate. "Hush! God isn't that sort!"

"Yes, He is, too! 'The Lord thy God is a _jealous_ God'--ask Phil!--Oh,
where _is_ Phil?" She looked wildly around, her voice growing higher and
higher. "He promised he wouldn't go away--he promised he wouldn't ever
leave me again. I want him! Phil, Phil!--Oh, _there_ you are!" The
relief in her tone was pitiful. "Don't get where I can't see you again,
Flippy darling. It frightens me so! Come here, I want to hold on to
you.... Now, tell mother all about the baby. She didn't see him, you
know, and I didn't see him either, very well. Oh, why did you let them
make me stupid with chloroform, so I couldn't see him? Tell mother about
his little ears, and his feet just exactly like mine--"

"Quiet, now," soothed Philip, striving to hush that painful, excited
babble. "See, your mother is tired! Let's not talk about it now."

"But I want to talk! I want to, before I forget anything about him. It's
the only baby I'll ever have. Mother wants to hear--don't you, Mummy? It
was her grandson, you see."

"What nonsense!" interrupted Kate with tremulous cheerfulness. "The
_only_ baby? You're just eighteen--you shall have all the babies you
want!"

"That shows how much you know about it!" cried Jacqueline with a sort of
agonized triumph. "I can't have any more! The doctor said so. I heard
him whispering to Jemmy, when he thought I was asleep, and I made her
tell me. She didn't want to, but she thought