and his hands shaking,
he brought out a bottle of brandy.

"We must drink the young fellow's health," said Mr. Twist, pouring out a
microscopic dose for himself and passing the bottle to Louis. "I got
that bottle a bit ago, as soon as mother told me your missus was like
that. You never know when a drop of brandy may save life."

Louis refused the drink, but Mr. Twist laughed at him--and Louis could
not bear to be laughed at. He too poured a microscopic dose, and they
solemnly toasted the unnamed son. Louis was fidgety, anxious to get
back.

"Leave them alone--they're better alone for a bit. All sorts of things
to see to," said the man who had weathered seven birthdays. "Have a pipe
with me."

They smoked; Mr. Twist talked. Louis answered vaguely, his mind with
Marcella; he had suddenly determined that he could not keep his son, as
well as his wife, chained in the Bush with him. Visions of the boy
growing up--going to school--going to the hospital to do what his father
had failed to do--floated before him. He was making titanic resolutions
for the future. His eyes strayed past the brandy bottle. Mr. Twist
pushed it generously forward.

"Have another dose. You need it, lad," he said. Louis stood up,
astonishing Mr. Twist. He was trembling violently, his forehead wet and
shining, his eyes wild.

"Put the damned stuff in the fire!" he cried, and dashed off over the
paddock as though a pack of devils was after him. It was an epoch; it
was the first time he had refused a drink.

CHAPTER XXVI

Marcella lay afloat on a warm, buoyant sea of enchantment, her eyes
closed; life seemed in suspension; she had never, in her life, known
pain of any severity until a few hours before; it had appalled,
astonished her. She felt it unfair that a body which could quiver to the
swift tingle of frosty mornings on the hills, the buffetings and
dashings of the North Sea waves, the still glamour of an aurora evening
on a house-top, and the inarticulate ecstasy of love, should be so
racked. But as she put out her hand across the bed and felt the faint
stirrings of the child at her side she forgot those few nightmare hours
as a saint, bowing his head for his golden crown at the hands of his
Lord, must forget the flames of the stake, the hot reek from the lion's
slavering jaws. She looked across to Louis, who was sleeping heavily in
his hammock; he had found time to tell her that, for the first time, he
had held temptation litera