"Nonsense! Bring them both to me."
He flung down some cushions in front of the fire, rapidly undressed the children, and laid them wriggling and squirming in the blaze among their wraps. He bent and examined them with minutest care. He turned them over and over, noticed all their points with a keenly critical eye, but could make nothing of it. They were as like as two peas. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, plump, clear-skinned, healthy youngsters both. The seven days between them, which in the very beginning might have been apparent, was now, after the lapse of two months, absolutely undiscoverable.
Sir Denzil came across and looked down on the jerking little arms and legs and twisting faces, and snuffed again as though he thought they might be infectious. For all the expression that showed in his face, they might have been a litter of pups.
"Well, I am ----!" said Dr. Yool, at last, straightening up from the inspection with his hands on his hips. "Now"--fixing the two women with a blazing eye--"what's the meaning of it all? Who is the father of this other child?"
"Denzil Carron," said Nance boldly, speaking for the first time. "He married me before he married her, and here are my lines," and she plucked them out of her bosom.
Dr. Yool's eyebrows went up half an inch. Sir Denzil took snuff very deliberately.
The doctor held out his hand for the paper, and after a moment's hesitation Nance handed it to him.
He read it carefully, and his good-humoured mouth twisted doubtfully. The matter looked serious.
"Dress the children and take them away," he said at last. When they were dressed, however, Nance stood waiting for her lines.
Dr. Yool understood. "I will be answerable for them," he said; and she turned and went.