"I'm much obliged for your advice," said Carew. But the idea was intimidating. "I shall be here, myself, for another week at least," he added, in allusion to the fee. "Is it safe to move him, do you think?"
"Oh yes, no need to fear that. Wrap him up, and take him away in a fly this morning. The sooner the better.... That's all right. Good-day."
He departed briskly, with an appetite for breakfast.
"Archie will have a nice drive," said Carew in a tone of dreary encouragement—"a nice drive in a carriage with papa."
"I'm sleepy," said the child.
"A nice drive in the sunshine, and see the sea. Nursie will put on your clothes."
"I don't want!"
His efforts to resist strengthened Carew's dislike to the proposed arrangement. It was not in the first few minutes that this abrupt presentment of the hospital recalled to the man's mind Mary's connection with it; and when the connection flashed upon him his spirits lightened. If the boy had to be laid up, away from his mother's relatives in London, the mischance could hardly occur under happier conditions than where——The reflection faded to a question-point. Would she be of use? Could he expect, or dare to ask for tenderness from Mary Brettan—and to the other woman's child? He doubted it.
In the revulsion of feeling that followed that leaping hope, he almost determined to withhold the request. Many children were safe in a hospital; why not his own child? He would pay for everything. And then the thought of Archie forsaken among strangers made him tremble; and the little form seemed to him, in its lassitude, to have become smaller still, more fragile.
Again and again, in the jolting cab, he debated an appeal to Mary, wrestling with shame for the sake of his boy. Without knowing what she could do, he was sensible that her interest would be of value. He clung passionately to the idea of leaving the hospital with the knowledge that it contained a friend, an individual who would spare to the child something more than the patient's purchased and impartial due.