Miss Dabney. Shall I come back here with the woman or the
doctor?"

"No; I'll send for you if--if there is no hope. Otherwise you could do
nothing."

He lifted his hat and was gone, and she turned and reentered the house
of trouble, bravely facing that which had to be faced.

An hour later, when Doctor Williams, with Mammy Juliet's Pete chopping
the way for him up the hazardous path, reached the end of his journey of
mercy, there was a bright fire crackling on the hearth, and Miss Dabney
was sitting before it, holding little Tom, who was still sleeping. Aunt
Eliza, a deft middle-aged negress who had succeeded Mammy Juliet as
housekeeper at Deer Trace, was bending over the bed, and the physician
went quickly to stand beside her, shaking his head dubiously. A moment
afterward he turned short on Ardea.

"You must go home, my dear--at once--and take the child with you. Pete
is outside to help you, and my buggy is just at the foot of the path. I
can't have you here."

"Can't I be of some use if I stay?" she pleaded.

"No; you'd only hinder. You are much too sympathetic. Don't delay; the
minutes may count for lives," and the physician began to unbuckle the
straps of the canvas-covered case he had brought with him.

Ardea wrapped the child hastily and gave him to Pete to carry, following
as quickly as she could down the path made possible by the coachman's
choppings. Happily, the doctor's horse was freshly shod, and the
quarter-mile to the manor-house was measured in safety. Ardea left
little Tom with Mammy Juliet at her cabin in the old quarters, and went
up to the great house to wait anxiously for news. It was drawing on to
the early dusk of the cloudy evening when she saw from the window of the
music-room the muffled figure of Pete opening the pasture gate for the
doctor to drive through. Instantly she flew to the door and out on the
steps.

"Go in, child; go in," was the fatherly command. "I've got to stop to
take Morelock in. I promised to carry him to the station."

"But Nancy?" she questioned anxiously.

"She will live," said the doctor briefly. And then he added with a
frown: "But the child may not--which would doubtless be the best thing
possible for all concerned. I'm afraid the woman is incorrigible." Then
the professional part of him came to its own again: "You'll have to send
somebody up there to relieve Eliza. Care is all that is needed now, but
it mustn't be stinted."

There were tears standing in