and Jack's watchful devotion, to keep him out of the sick child's room.
He seemed to have aged ten years in these few short days. His ruddy
colour was gone; his eyes had lost their fiery spark; his military
stride had given place to an anxious shuffle.

"We shall have you ill, sir!" Elizabeth Beadle remonstrated, with many
tears.

"You ain't like Mr. Raymond, sir; you cannot go without your food. It's
hard enough as I can't go to my baby, my own dear niece's child, to
nurse him myself, as go I would if I was let, though Miss Hilda may be a
better nurse, as you say; but blood is thicker than water, Colonel
Ferrers, and if I have to have you sick, too, it will be more than I can
bear, sir; yes, it will!" Thus Mrs. Beadle, with her apron at her eyes.
The Colonel, roused for a moment from his anxious musing, turned upon
her with something like his natural fury.

"_You_ go to the child, Elizabeth Beadle? You, who cannot keep from
crying for ten minutes together? If you would stop poisoning my food
with salt water, ma'am, you might have less complaint to make of my not
eating. You have no more sense, ma'am,--no more sense than--than some
other people have. Don't look at me in that manner, I desire you! God
bless you, my dear old soul; go along, will you, or I shall be crying,
too."

Rumours of these things, and others like them, came to Hildegarde, as
she sat hour after hour by the sick child's side, shifting his pillow
now and then when it grew hot, laying the cool wet cloths on his
forehead, giving him food, drink, medicine, at the appointed times. The
whole world seemed narrowed down to this one room; everything outside
was unreal, all save the scene in white and black that she saw whenever
she closed her eyes,--the moonlight on the snow, the black firs, the
child in his white dress, fronting death with his sleeping smile, and by
her side the friend who was to save him. How long ago was it? Had she
been sitting here three days, or three weeks?

Little Hugh lay still, with his eyes shut. He seemed unconscious for the
most part. Only now and then came a motion of the head, a low moan that
was hardly more than a whisper; then the blue-veined lids would lift
heavily for an instant, and the sweet eyes look out, but with no light
in them; and after a moment the lids would fall again wearily, and the
heavy sleep close round him again like a curtain. How long would it
last?

More snow had fallen. She heard the sound of be