ared in the doorway. She had been
about to go out, when her attention had been caught by the loud voices.
She stood now, amazed, clasping her hands together, while the nurse,
shaking her fist first at Madame Dupont and then at her son, cried
loudly, "Very well! I'm going away because I don't want to catch a
filthy disease here!"

"HUSH!" cried Madame Dupont, and sprang toward her, her hands clenched
as if she would choke her.

"Be silent!" cried George, wild with terror.

But the woman rushed on without dropping her voice, "Oh, you need not
be troubling yourselves for fear anyone should overhear! All the world
knows it! Your other servants were listening with me at your door! They
heard every word your doctor said!"

"Shut up!" screamed George.

Her mother seized the woman fiercely by the arm. "Hold your tongue!" she
hissed.

But again the other shook herself loose. She was powerful, and now her
rage was not to be controlled. She waved her hands in the air, shouting,
"Let me be, let me be! I know all about your brat--that you will never
be able to raise it--that it's rotten because it's father has a filthy
disease he got from a woman of the street!"

She got no farther. She was interrupted by a frenzied shriek from
Henriette. The three turned, horrified, just in time to see her fall
forward upon the floor, convulsed.

"My God!" cried George. He sprang toward her, and tried to lift her, but
she shrank from him, repelling him with a gesture of disgust, of hatred,
of the most profound terror. "Don't touch me!" she screamed, like a
maniac. "Don't touch me!"

CHAPTER V

It was in vain that Madame Dupont sought to control her daughter-in-law.
Henriette was beside herself, frantic, she could not be brought to
listen to any one. She rushed into the other room, and when the older
woman followed her, shrieked out to be left alone. Afterwards, she fled
to her own room and barred herself in, and George and his mother waited
distractedly for hours until she should give some sign.

Would she kill herself, perhaps? Madame Dupont hovered on guard about
the door of the nursery for fear that the mother in her fit of insanity
might attempt some harm to her child.

The nurse had slunk away abashed when she saw the consequences of
her outburst. By the time she had got her belongings packed, she had
recovered her assurance. She wanted her five hundred; also she wanted
her wages and her railroad fare home. She wanted them