CHAPTER XXIV

"THROUGH PITY AND TERROR EFFECTING A PURIFICATION OF THE HEART"

One hot day in August, Ariadne slept later than usual and when she woke
was quite unlike her usual romping, active self. Her round face was
deeply flushed, and she lay listlessly in her little bed, repulsing with
a feeble fretfulness every attempt to give her food. Lydia's heart
swelled so that she was choked with its palpitations. Paul was out of
town. She was alone in the house except for her servant. To that
ignorant warm heart she turned with an inexpressible thankfulness. "Oh,
'Stashie! Stashie!" she called in a voice that brought the other
clattering breathlessly up the stairs. "The baby! Look at the baby! And
she won't touch her bottle."

The tragic change in the Irishwoman's face as she looked at their
darling, their anguished community of feeling--there was instantly a
bond for the two women which wonderfully ignored all the dividing
differences between them. Lydia felt herself--as she rarely did--not
alone. It brought a wild comfort into her tumult. "'Stashie, you
don't--you don't think she's--_sick?_" She brought the word out with
horrified difficulty.

'Stashie was running down the back stairs. "I'm 'phonin' to th' little
ould doctor," she called over her shoulder.

Lydia ran to catch up Ariadne. The child turned from her mother with a
moan and closed her eyes heavily. A moment later, to Lydia's terror, she
had sunk into a stupor.

The doctor found mistress and maid hanging over the baby's bed with
white faces and trembling lips, hand in hand, like sisters. He examined
the child silently, swiftly, looking with a face of inscrutable
blankness at the clinical thermometer with which he had taken her
temperature. "Just turn her so she'll lie comfortably," he told
'Stashie, "and then you stay with her a moment. I want a talk with your
mistress."

In the hall, he cast at Lydia a glance of almost angry exhortation to
summon her strength. "Are you fit to be a mother?" he asked harshly.

"Wait a minute," said Lydia; she drew a long breath and took hold of the
balustrade. "Yes," she answered.

"Ariadne's very sick. I oughtn't to have allowed you to wean her with
hot weather coming on. You'd better wire Paul."

"Yes," she said, not blenching. "What else can I do?"

"'Phone to the hospital for a trained nurse, start some water boiling to
sterilize things, and get somebody here in a hurry to go to the nearest
drug store for m