feared, after nineteen years of unchecked entrance,
could never have been ascertained; but there it was, that flower of
something formal and precise, of something reticent, within his soul.

This time, for once, he did not knock, and found Cecilia hooking up her
tea-gown and looking very sweet. She glanced at him with mild surprise.

"What's this, Cis," he said, "about a baby dead? Thyme's quite upset
about it; and your dad's in the drawing-room!"

With the quick instinct that was woven into all her gentle treading,
Cecilia's thoughts flew--she could not have told why--first to the
little model, then to Mrs. Hughs.

"Dead?" she said. "Oh, poor woman!"

"What woman?" Stephen asked.

"It must be Mrs. Hughs."

The thought passed darkly through Stephen's mind: 'Those people again!
What now?' He did not express it, being neither brutal nor lacking in
good taste.

A short silence followed, then Cecilia said suddenly: "Did you say that
father was in the drawing-room? There's fillet of beef, Stephen!"

Stephen turned away. "Go and see Thyme!" he said.

Outside Thyme's door Cecilia paused, and, hearing no sound, tapped
gently. Her knock not being answered, she slipped in. On the bed of that
white room, with her face pressed into the pillow, her little daughter
lay. Cecilia stood aghast. Thyme's whole body was quivering with
suppressed sobs.

"My darling!" said Cecilia, "what is it?"

Thyme's answer was inarticulate.

Cecilia sat down on the bed and waited, drawing her fingers through
the girl's hair, which had fallen loose; and while she sat there she
experienced all that sore, strange feeling--as of being skinned--which
comes to one who watches the emotion of someone near and dear without
knowing the exact cause.

'This is dreadful,' she thought. 'What am I to do?'

To see one's child cry was bad enough, but to see her cry when that
child's whole creed of honour and conduct for years past had precluded
this relief as unfeminine, was worse than disconcerting.

Thyme raised herself on her elbow, turning her face carefully away.

"I don't know what's the matter with me," she said, choking. "It's--it's
purely physical."

"Yes, darling," murmured Cecilia; "I know."

"Oh, Mother!" said Thyme suddenly, "it looked so tiny."

"Yes, yes, my sweet."

Thyme faced round; there was a sort of passion in her darkened eyes,
rimmed pink with grief, and in all her gushed, wet face.

"Why should it have been choked out