his housemaid than have left him to
Hester, and I must have looked like a stone as I got up, and left them
to their talk while I went back to the boy.

I heard Bertram say while I was lighting my candle, "Poor Ursula! she
will not see it. Hart told me to-day that the child is dying--would
hardly get through the night."

Now I had been thinking all the afternoon that he was better, and I had
gone down to dinner cheered. I turned into the doorway, and told Fulk
to come and see.

He did come. There was Alured, lying, as he had lain all day, upon his
nurse's knees, with her arm under his head. He had not moaned for a
long time, and I had left him in a more comfortable sleep. He opened
his eyes as we came in, held out his hands more strongly than we
thought he could have done, quite smiled--such an intelligent
smile--and said, "Tor--Tor--," which was what he had always called his
brother, making his gesture to go to him.

The tears came into Fulk's eyes, though he smiled back and spoke in his
sweet, strong voice, and held out his arms, while we told him he had
better sit down. Poor nurse! she must have been glad enough--she had
held him all that live-long day! And he was quite eager to go to his
brother, and smiled up and cooed out, "Tor--Tor," again, as he felt
himself on the strong arm.

Fulk bade nurse go and lie down, and he would hold him. And so he did.
I fed the child, as I had done at intervals all day; and he sometimes
slept, sometimes woke and murmured or cooed a little, and Fulk scarcely
spoke or stirred, hour after hour. He had been travelling day and
night, but, strange to say, that enforced calm--that tender stillness
and watching, was better for him than rest. He would only have tossed
about awake, if he had gone to bed after a discussion with Bertram.

But in the morning Dr. Hart came, quite surprised to find the child
alive; and when he looked at him and felt his pulse, he said, "You have
saved him for this time, at least."

(Everybody was lavish of pronouns, and chary of proper names. Nobody
knew what to call anybody.)

His little lordship was able to be laid in his cot, and Fulk, almost
blind now with sheer sleep, stumbled off to his room, threw himself on
his bed, and slept for seven hours in his clothes without so much as
moving. He confessed that he had never had such unbroken, dreamless
sleep since he had first seen Hester Lea's face.

That little murmur of "Tor--Tor" had settle