Afterwards

"Will you come this way, signor?" Her foreign accent was more marked than usual; and looking at her worn and sallow countenance Anstice guessed she had not slept.

He followed her without asking any questions, and in another moment was in Cherry's bedroom, the little white and pink room whose wall papers and chintzes were stamped with the life-like bunches of cherries on which he had once remarked admiringly, to the little owner's gratification.

In the small white bed lay Cherry, her head swathed in bandages, one little arm bandaged likewise; and beside her knelt Chloe Carstairs, her face like marble, her silky black hair dishevelled on her brow, as though she, too, had passed a sleepless night. Cherry's brown eyes were widely opened with an expression of half-wondering pain in their usually limpid depths, and from time to time she uttered little moans which sounded doubly piteous coming from so self-controlled a child as she.

"Dr. Anstice--at last!" Chloe rose swiftly from her knees and came to meet him with both hands outstretched. "I thought you were never coming--that Dr. Willows had forgotten to tell you----"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Carstairs." He knew at once, with a relief which would not be repressed, that Cheniston had kept his miserable secret. "I only saw Dr. Willows half an hour ago, and came at once. How is Cherry this morning--did she have any sleep?"

"Yes, thank God." Listening to her low voice, Anstice wondered why he had ever thought her lacking in affection for her child. "Dr. Willows was most kind--he stayed half the night with us and Cherry slept for some hours after he left. But now she is awake, as you see, and I'm afraid she is suffering horribly."

"Let me see what I can do for her, will you?"

He approached the bed and sat down quietly by it, while Cherry ceased for a second to moan, and her brown eyes besought him, more eloquently than speech, to give her relief from this quite unusual state of affairs. At first he was not certain that the child recognized him; but presently her uninjured hand came gropingly towards him; and as he took the tiny fingers in his own Anstice felt a sudden revival of the energies which had seemed so dead, so burnt-out within him on this beautiful September morning.

"Well, Cherry, this is bad luck, isn't it?" He spoke very gently, studying her little face the while. "But don't lose heart--this pain won't last long, it will soon run away. Is it very bad?"