"I shall be on the platform or in the train at a quarter before three. Please look about for an Indian ayah, who will receive the child. You are sure that there will never be any attempt made to follow and discover my name?"
"As to discovery," he said, "you may rest quite easy. For my own part, my work lies in this slum of Birmingham; it is not likely that I shall ever get out of it. I am a sixpenny doctor; you are a woman of society: I shall never meet you. This little business will be forgotten to-morrow. If, in the future, by any accident I were to meet you, I should not know you. If I were to know you, I should not speak to you. Until you yourself give me leave, even if I should recognize you, I should not speak about this business."
"Thank you," she said coldly. "It is not, however, likely that you will be tempted."
He took up an open envelope lying on the table—it was the envelope in which the lady had brought the notes,—replaced them, and put them in his pocket. Then he opened the door for the lady, who bowed coldly, and went out.
A few days before this, the same lady, with an Indian ayah, was bending over a dying child. They sent for the nearest medical man. He came. He tried the usual things; they proved useless. The child must die.
The child was dead.
The child was buried.
The mother sat stupefied. In her hand she held a letter—her husband's latest letter. "In a day or two," he said, "my life's work will be finished. In a fortnight after you get this, I shall be at Southampton. Come to meet me, dear one, and bring the boy. I am longing to see the boy and the boy's mother. Kiss the boy for me;" and so on, and so on—always thinking of the boy, the boy, the boy! And the boy was dead! And the bereaved father was on his way home! She laid down the letter, and took up a telegram. Already he must be crossing the Alps, looking forward to meeting the boy, the boy, the boy!