Stott came back at ten o’clock, after a morose trudge through the misty rain. He found the nurse in the sitting-room.
“Doctor gone?” he asked.
The nurse nodded.
“Dead, I suppose?” Stott gave an upward twist of his head towards the room above.
The nurse shook her head.
“Can’t live though?” There was a note of faint hope in his voice.
The nurse drew herself together and sighed deeply. “Yes! we believe it’ll live, Mr. Stott,” she said. “But ... it’s a very remarkable baby.”
How that phrase always recurred!