his heart, he cried out, "Is the child----?" But
Sir Tom could not say the word. He shivered, standing outside the closed
door. The mystery seemed incomprehensible, save on the score of some
great calamity. The bitterness of death went over him; but then he asked
himself what reason there could be to conceal from him any terrible
sudden blow. Lucy would have wanted him in such a case, not kept him
from her. In this dread moment of sudden panic he thought of everything
but the real cause, which made a more effectual barrier between them
than that closed door.

"He is well enough now," said Lucy's voice, coming faintly out of the
darkness. "Oh, indeed, there is nothing the matter. Please go away; go
to bed. It is so late. I am going to stay with him."

"Lucy," said Sir Tom, "I have never been shut out before. There is
something you are concealing from me. Let me see him and then you shall
do as you please."

There was a little pause, and then slowly, reluctantly, Lucy opened the
door. She was still fully dressed as she had been for dinner. There was
not a particle of colour in her face. Her eyes had a scared look and
were surrounded by wide circles, as if the orbit had been hollowed out.
She stood aside to let him pass without a word. The room in which little
Tom slept was an inner room. There was scarcely any light in either,
nothing but the faint glimmer of the night-lamp. The sleeping-room was
hushed and full of the most tranquil quiet, the regular soft breathing
of the sleeping child in his little bed, and of his nurse by him, who
was as completely unaware as he of any intrusion. Sir Tom stole in and
looked at his boy, in the pretty baby attitude of perfect repose, his
little arms thrown up over his head. The anxiety vanished from his
heart, but not the troubled sense of something wrong, a mystery which
altogether baffled him. Mystery had no place here in this little
sanctuary of innocence. But what did it mean? He stole out again to
where Lucy stood, scared and silent in her white dress, with a jewelled
pendant at her neck which gleamed strangely in the half light.

"He seems quite well now. What was it, and why are you so anxious?" he
asked. "Did the doctor----"

"There was no need for a doctor. It is only--myself. I must stay with
him, he might want me----" And nobody else does, Lucy was about to say,
but pride and modesty restrained her. Her husband looked at her
earnestly. He perceived with a curious pang o