"You wait here, like a good fellow. If he will not let me say one word—if he orders me out—then you must come up instead. If he is so ill that his wife goes herself at midnight for the doctor, then he is too ill to be left with no one in the house but a child of five!"

Carlton's concern was not a little for the child. Suppose he had awakened to call and call in vain—perhaps to run for succour to a corpse! The thought made Carlton shudder as he found his way through passages with which he had been permitted to become familiar after Georgie's accident. At the head of the stairs there was Georgie's room; the father had to pass it; and could not, without peeping in.

For this door was ajar, and a night-light burning on the chest of drawers. Georgie was breathing gently in his cot. Carlton approached on tip-toe, and stood gazing downward with clasped hands. Boisterous and robust upon his feet, the boy looked still a baby in his sleep; his face was so round and innocent; his hands seemed such toys; and the light hair, too seldom cut, was lightest at the roots, and still curly at the ends, as it lay upon the pillow where his last movement had tossed it. It was a sweet face, even with the great eyes closed; the eyelashes looked so much longer and darker against the pure skin; they were many shades darker than the hair; and the eyebrows were assuming a very delicate definition of their own. The mouth was beautiful. That brown little hand was perfectly shaped. Carlton bent over, and kissed the warm smooth cheek with infinite tenderness; then went upon his knees, and prayed over the child, and for him, and for his future, out of the fulness of a brimming heart. He forgot that Musk's death would make a difference to the child and to himself; for the moment he forgot that Musk was in any danger of dying, and that this was his house. He and his child were alone together once more, it might be for the last time, one never knew.

"God keep you, my own poor boy, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver you from evil, for ever and ever, Amen."

He stooped once more over the cot, pushed the long hair back, running his fingers through it gently, and kissed the pure forehead again and again. And it seemed to Robert Carlton—but the night-light was very dim—that at the last his son had smiled upon him in his sleep.

XXXII
THE SECOND TIME

In Musk's room there was more light. It lay under the closed door like a yellow rod. Carlton knocked gently. There was no answer. He knocked louder. Not a sound from within. Then the chill fell on him, and he entered ready for any discovery but the one he was to make.

Neither the quick nor the dead lay within.

A fire was burning as well as the lamp; the very bed looked warm, but was not; the sick man must have left it some minutes at least.