d restlessness had asserted itself with
fatal consequences. Jack had leapt up, rushed to the table, clutched at
a glass of milk placed ready for his own refreshment, and in so doing
had brought his bandaged head across the flame of an open candle, one of
the small "properties" of the cottage scene. In an instant he was in
flames; he threw up his little arm and the sleeve of the nightshirt
caught the blaze; he ran shrieking to and fro, dodging pursuit,
fighting, struggling, refusing to be held. For a moment the beholders
had been too aghast for action; then Pixie leapt for the blankets, while
Stanor overtook the child, tripped him up, wrapped and pressed and
wrapped again; unfolded with trembling hands--

It was no one's fault. No one could be blamed. Jack was old enough to
understand and obey, was proverbially docile and obedient. Under the
same circumstances at home he would have been left without a qualm. The
unusual circumstances had created an unusual restlessness not to be
anticipated. Even at that bitter moment Joan realised that if it was a
question of blame, she herself was at fault in having allowed the child
to take part in the tableau against her husband's better judgment. A
smaller nature might have found relief in scattering blame wholesale,
but there was a generosity in Irish Esmeralda's nature which lifted her
above the temptation. In the midst of her anguish she spared a moment
to comfort Pixie by a breathless "Not your fault!" before she became
unconscious of everything but the moaning figure on the bed.

The treatment of Jack's burns was completed with praiseworthy
expedition. The local chemist flew on winged feet to his shop in the
village street, whence he brought back all that was required. Nurse and
doctor sent away the relatives, and worked with swift, tender fingers;
and presently a swathed, motionless figure was carried out to an
impromptu ambulance, fitted up inside the great car, while the late
audience stood massed together in the street, looking on silent and
motionless--silent as to speech, but from every heart in that crowd went
up a cry to God, and every mother in the village knelt that night beside
her bed and prayed with tears for the life of little Jack Hilliard, and
for the support and comfort of his father and mother.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack lay motionless in the darkened room, a tiny form outlined beneath
the bed