There came at last the click of the garden-gate. They had come across the drenched meadows. In a transient gleam of moonlight she saw the two figures striding towards her. Grange stopped a moment to fasten the gate. The doctor came straight on.
She ran to the front door and threw it open. The wind blew swirling all about her, but she never felt it, though her very lips were numb and cold.
"It's too late!" she gasped, as he entered. "It's too late!"
Jim Ratcliffe took her by the shoulders and forced her away from the open door.
"Go and put something on," he ordered, "instantly!"
There was no resisting the mastery of his tone. She responded to it instinctively, hardly knowing what she did.
The ayah's paroxysm of grief had sunk to a low moaning when she re-entered her room. It sounded like a dumb creature in pain. Hastily she dressed, and twisted up her hair with fingers that she strove in vain to steady.
Then noiselessly she crept back to the nursery.
Daisy was still rocking softly to and fro before the ore, her piteous burden yet clasped against her heart. The doctor was stooping over her, and Muriel saw the half-eager, half-suspicious look in Daisy's eyes as she watched him. She was telling him in rapid whispers what had happened.
He listened to her very quietly, his keen eyes fixed unblinking upon the baby's face. When she ended, he stooped a little lower, his hand upon her arm.