be hers. For the first time she felt the meaning of the
word "duty." Tommy had been her duty, and she had neglected him.

At length one day she made a further discovery.

She was sitting by the bed, and for over an hour the child had lain
still, his eyes half shut. It was five o'clock and a dark afternoon, so
that the room was full of shadows.

Suddenly Tommy turned and looked at her.

"Brigit," he asked, recognising her for the first time, "are you in love
with Joyselle?"

For a full minute she could not answer, and then said very gently,
"Darling Tommy--you know me?"

"Yes, yes, of course I know you. But--_are_ you? Carron and mother think
so."

"Do they, Tommy? Well--I love him dearly--and so do you, don't you?"

"I don't mean _that_," he returned, with a gesture of impatience; "I
mean the way people are who are going to marry each other."

His eyes, so huge in his wasted face, looked eagerly at her.

"Carron and mother think you do," he repeated, "and it makes me sorry."

She did not answer for a long time, and then she said humbly, not
knowing how far he understood that whereof he spoke, and therefore
obliged to feel her way, "Tommy dear--you forget _petite mere_."

"No, I don't--but she is _old_."

"She is younger than he."

But ill though he was, Tommy's sense of humour was still alive. "_That_
doesn't matter! Oh, Bick, darling, I am so tired! And I do hope you
aren't--I mean, _that_."

So, of course, she lied, and the little boy went to sleep, his hand in
hers.

When, an hour later, she went to her room, she found a wire from Theo,
announcing their arrival in London, and in spite of herself her spirits
rose. Things must be better now that _he_ was near her.

But things were not better, and the doctor, the next morning, looked
very grave. "I think it bad to allow him to have his violin," he said;
"it excites him and increases the fever. And--I think I should like a
consultation."

Lady Kingsmead burst into tears and hurried from the room, but Brigit
wrote a telegram, as dictated by the old doctor who had brought the boy
into the world, to a famous physician in London, and a groom was sent
galloping to the station to send it.

"Who is this person he always takes me for?" asked the doctor, polishing
his glasses. "This morning he insisted on my--on my playing for him. I
have never played anything except the cornet, when I was a young man.
I--it very nearly upset me, Lady Brigit. I love Tommy