ared him thanks, but he began walking about the room
restlessly. At last he went to the door and set it ajar. "I want to hear
when Sir Joseph comes down," he explained, and even as he spoke there
came the sound of heavy, slow footsteps on the staircase.

Bellair went out and brought the great man in.

"I've told Mrs. Bellair that we ought to have Bewdley! He knows a great
deal more about children than I can pretend to do; and I propose, with
your leave, to go off now, myself, and if possible bring him back." The
old doctor's keen eyes wandered as he spoke from Bellair's fair face to
Hugh Elwyn's dark one. "Perhaps," he said, "perhaps, Mr. Bellair, you
would get someone to telephone to Dr. Bewdley's house to say that I'm
coming? It might save a few moments."

As Bellair left the room, the doctor turned to Elwyn and said abruptly,
"I hope you'll be able to stay with your brother? All this is very hard
on him; Mrs. Bellair will scarcely allow him into the child's room, and
though that, of course, is quite right, I'm sorry for the man. He's
wrapped up in the child."

And when Bellair came back from accompanying the old doctor to his
carriage, there was a smile on his face--the first smile which had been
there for a long time: "Pixton thinks you're my brother! He said, 'I
hope your brother will manage to stay with you for a bit.' Now I'll go
up and see Fanny. Pixton is certainly more hopeful than the last man we
had--"

Bellair's voice had a confident ring. Elwyn remembered with a pang that
Jim had always been like that--always believed, that is, that the best
would come to pass.

When left alone, Elwyn began walking restlessly up and down, much as his
friend had walked up and down a few minutes ago. Something of the
excitement of the fight going on above had entered into him; he now
desired ardently that the child should live, should emerge victor from
the grim struggle.

At last Bellair came back. "Fanny believes that this is the night of
crisis," he said slowly. All the buoyancy had left his voice. "But--but
Elwyn, I hope you won't mind--the fact is she's set her heart on your
seeing him. I told her what you told me about yourself, I mean your
illness as a child, and it's cheered her up amazingly, poor girl!
Perhaps you could tell her a little bit more about it, though I like to
think that if the boy gets through it"--his voice broke suddenly--"she
won't remember this--this awful time. But don't let's keep her
wa