CHAPTER XIV.
"I AM QUITE SURE YOU NEED NOT BE AFRAID."
"You are sure I need not be alarmed? You are quite, quite sure? She is all my world." Denis Fergusson looked down at the small trembling creature, his eyes full of grave kindliness.
"Indeed, you need not be alarmed, Lady Cicely," he said. "I advised Miss Moore to send for you, because with a child, everything is so rapid that one never quite knows at the beginning of an illness how things may go. But little Miss Baba is doing exactly as she ought to do in every way. You need not have the slightest anxiety."
The little mother, with her lovely, troubled face, stood in the window of that same low, old-fashioned room, which Rupert, a fortnight earlier, had found such a restful place, and the doctor stood by her side. The winter sunshine fell upon her delicately cut features, lighting the pale gold of her hair into a halo; and the blue eyes she turned to her companion, seemed to him scarcely less innocent and sweet, than the eyes which had looked into his from Baba's cot.
"Such a little woman to have the responsibilities of womanhood," was his thought; "such a little woman, who looks as if she ought to be wrapped round with care and tenderness."
Perhaps some of the chivalrous tenderness of his thought showed itself in his glance; perhaps Cicely could read in his face the trustworthy nature of the man, for she said quickly:
"You see, Baba and I have only each other in the world, and that makes her very extra precious. Sometimes—I am afraid, because I love her so much."
"Afraid?" The doctor's glance was puzzled.