"He's very ill," said she. "Look at him."
The nurse moved a fold of blanket from the child's face, and Stanistreet gazed at Tyson's son. He tried to speak.
"Sh—sh—" whispered Mrs. Nevill Tyson. "He's sleeping."
"Dying, sir," muttered the nurse. The woman drew in her knees, tightening her hold on the child. Her face was stained with tears. (She had loved the baby before she loved Pinker. Remorse moved her and righteous indignation.) Mrs. Nevill Tyson's nostrils twitched; deep black rings were round her eyes. Passion and hunger were in them, but there were no tears.
And as Stanistreet looked from one woman to the other, he understood. He picked up the bundle and removed it to its mother's knee. All her soul passed into the look wherewith she thanked him. Swinny, tear-stained but inexorable, stood aloof, like rigid Justice, weighing her mistress in the balance.
"He's dying, Molly," he said gently.
She shook her head. "No; he's not dying. God isn't cruel. He won't let him die."
She turned the child's face to her breast, hoping perhaps that his hands would move in the old delicious way.
He did not stir, and she laid him on his back again and looked at him. His lips and the hollows under his eyes were blue. The collapse had come. Louis knelt down and put his hand over the tiny heart.
A spasm passed over the baby's face, simulating a smile. Then Mrs. Nevill Tyson fell to smiling too.