Mr. Luttrell came up to her side and answered her.
"The baby is coming, Margaret; Vincenza is bringing him." Then, after a pause—"Baby has been ill," he said. "You must be prepared to see a great change in him."
She looked at him as if she did not understand.
"What change shall I see?" she said. "Tell Vincenza to make haste, Edward. I must see my baby at once; the doctor said I might see him to-day."
"Don't excite yourself, Margaret; I'll fetch them," said Mr. Luttrell, easily. "Come along, Dick; let us find Vincenza and little brother Brian."
He quitted the room, with Dick at his heels. Mrs. Luttrell was left alone. But she had not long to wait. Vincenza entered, made a low reverence, uttered two or three sentences of congratulation on the English signora's recovery, and then placed the baby on Mrs. Luttrell's lap.
What happened next nobody ever precisely knew. But in another moment Vincenza fled from the room, with her hands to her ears, and her face as white as death.
"The signora is mad—mad!" she gasped, as she met Mr. Luttrell in the corridor. "She does not know her own child! She says that she will kill it! I dare not go to her; she says that her baby is dead, and that that one is mine! Mine! mine! Oh, Holy Virgin in Heaven! she says that the child is mine!"
Wherewith Vincenza went into strong hysterics, and Mr. Luttrell strode hastily towards his wife's room, from which the cries of a child could be heard. He found Mrs. Luttrell sitting with the baby on her knee, but although the poor little thing was screaming with all its might, she vouchsafed it no attention.
"Tell Vincenza to take her wretched child away," she said. "I want my own. This is her child; not mine."