In the smallest Vive lay apparently asleep on her pillow.
But Jack saw at once she was not asleep. Her exquisite little face was flushed a bright scarlet, her lids heavy and closed, and the strangest fact was that one of her little hands twitched unceasingly.
Now and then she opened her golden brown eyes, but without seeing or knowing anyone.
When the doctor arrived he made no effort to disguise the seriousness of Vive's condition. If she were to live it would be a fight and one of the hardest of all kinds, since they must simply wait and watch, with very little possible to do.
For some unknown reason, perhaps because there had been too much excitement from the trip, too much notice taken of her by too many people, Vive had meningitis.
But Jack was never a coward and it is scarcely worth saying that a mother's courage, so long as she thinks it can help her child, is the purest courage of all.
As soon as she heard the verdict, Jack went quickly to her own room and put on a white cotton dress. Afterwards, until Vive was better or worse, she would never leave her side for a moment.
But it is one thing to be brave when a shock comes and one has health and strength to meet it. It is another to keep up that courage hour after hour, day after day, when the strength is gone and the body and mind unconsciously sick with weariness.
There was a trained nurse, of course, and any member of her family would have done anything that was humanly possible to relieve Jack's vigil. But she would not be persuaded or argued into going out of her baby's room, and slept there in the hours when she did sleep, half awake and half dreaming, on a small cot by Vive's.
And most of the time Frieda stayed with her.