"Yes, captain," said Dr. Conly: "she has had a fall,—a very severe one for so young and tender a creature."
"How did it happen?" he asked, in tones of mingled grief and sternness.
No one answered; and after waiting a moment, he repeated the question, addressing it directly to his wife.
"Oh, do not ask me, love!" she said entreatingly, and he reluctantly yielded to her request; but light began to dawn upon him, sending an added pang to his heart; suddenly he remembered Lulu's former jealousy of the baby, her displeasure at its birth; and with a thrill of horror, he asked himself if this could be her work.
He glanced about the room in search of her and Max.
Neither was there.
He passed noiselessly into the next room, then into the one beyond,—his wife's boudoir,—and there found his son.
Max sat gazing abstractedly from a window, his eyes showing traces of tears.
Turning his head as the captain entered, he started up with a joyful but subdued cry, "Papa!" then threw himself with bitter sobbing into the arms outstretched to receive him.
"My boy, my dear boy!" the captain said, in moved tones. "What is this dreadful thing that has happened? Can you tell me how your baby sister came to get so sad a fall?"