'Where was Salome now? Was she thinking of home—of her baby—of—of—him?'
Then he wondered whether she were cold, and hungry, and tired. She had not slept the previous night. She had been busy packing, or going in and out of baby's room, to kiss the little sleeping face, or to pray by the crib, or let the dew of her tears fall over it.
Philip stood up. He left his glass unfinished, and went upstairs to the nursery. He found the door ajar, and the room empty. The nurse had gone down for a talk in the kitchen—no doubt about Master, and Mary was telling her about his mole, and the spots of dust on his collar.
He entered the nursery and stood by the crib, and looked at the sleeping child.
Little Philip was now quite well again, and was very sound asleep. He was undoubtedly a Pennycomequick. He had dark hair, and long dark eyelashes. But surely—surely there was some trace of his mother in the tiny face. It could not be that he did not bear in him something of her. Philip looked intently at the child, and tried to find out in him some feature of his wife.
There, on this side of the crib, had Salome's hands rested that night when little Philip was ill. Philip, the father, knew the exact spot where her hands had rested, and where her forehead had leaned, with the red-gold hair falling down over the side upon the bedding. Where the white left hand had clutched, with the gold ring sparkling on it, there now Philip placed his hand, and there streamed up to him from the crib of his child a magnetic influence that put him en rapport with his absent wife, brought to him a soothing sense of oneness with her who was far away, and filled his heart with regret and yearning.
The child began to cry.
Then Philip rang the bell, and when the nurse arrived, red and blowing——
'How is it that you are not at your post?' he asked.
'Please, sir, I only just ran down to warm up Dr. Ridge's Food for the baby,' was the answer.