p, sitting on the floor senseless:--she
had taken it from its sleep and tried to follow her husband with it as
her strongest appeal to him, and had fainted.

"Oh my! oh my!" Mrs. Berry moaned, "and I just now thinkin' they was so
happy!"

Warming and caressing the poor infant, she managed by degrees to revive
Lucy, and heard what had brought her to that situation.

"Go to his father," said Mrs. Berry. "Ta-te-tiddle-te-heighty-O! Go, my
love, and every horse in Raynham shall be out after 'm. This is what men
brings us to! Heighty-oighty-iddlety-Ah! Or you take blessed baby, and
I'll go."

The baronet himself knocked at the door. "What is this?" he said. "I
heard a noise and a step descend."

"It's Mr. Richard have gone, Sir Austin! have gone from his wife and
babe! Rum-te-um-te-iddledy--Oh, my goodness! what sorrow's come on us!"
and Mrs. Berry wept, and sang to baby, and baby cried vehemently, and
Lucy, sobbing, took him and danced him and sang to him with drawn lips
and tears dropping over him. And if the Scientific Humanist to the day
of his death forgets the sight of those two poor true women jigging on
their wretched hearts to calm the child, he must have very little of the
human in him.

There was no more sleep for Raynham that night.

CHAPTER XLV

"His ordeal is over. I have just come from his room and seen him bear
the worst that could be. Return at once--he has asked for you. I can
hardly write intelligibly, but I will tell you what we know.

"Two days after the dreadful night when he left us, his father heard
from Ralph Morton. Richard had fought a duel in France with Lord
Mountfalcon, and was lying wounded at a hamlet on the coast. His father
started immediately with his poor wife, and I followed in company with
his aunt and his child. The wound was not dangerous. He was shot in the
side somewhere, but the ball injured no vital part. We thought all would
be well. Oh! how sick I am of theories, and Systems, and the pretensions
of men! There was his son lying all but dead, and the man was still
unconvinced of the folly he had been guilty of. I could hardly bear the
sight of his composure. I shall hate the name of Science till the day I
die. Give me nothing but commonplace unpretending people!

"They were at a wretched French cabaret, smelling vilely, where we still
remain, and the people try as much as they can do to compensate for
our discomforts by their kindness. The French poor people are v