He had got something which Mrs. Nevill Tyson had never heard

of--"marasmus," the doctor called it. She hoped it was nothing very bad.

Then the truth came out piecemeal, through Swinny's confession and the

witness of her fellow-servants. The wretched woman's movements had been

wholly determined by the movements of Pinker; and she had been in the

habit of leaving the child in the servants' hall, where the cook, being

an affectionate motherly woman, made much of him, and fed him with

strange food. He had had an "attack" the last time she did this, and

Swinny, who valued her place for more reasons than one, had been afraid

to say anything about it. Preoccupied with her great passion, she had

been insensible to the signs of sickness that showed themselves from day

to day. In other words, there had been shameful, pitiful neglect.

Terrified and repentant, Swinny confessed, and became faithful again. She

sat up all night with the child wrapped in blankets in her lap. She left

nothing for his mother to do but to sit and look at him, or go softly to

and fro, warming blankets. (It was odd, but Mrs. Nevill Tyson never

questioned the woman's right to exclusive possession of the child.)

She had written to Nevill by the first post to tell him of his son's

illness. That gave him time to answer the same night.

Wednesday came. There was no answer to her letter; and the baby was

worse. The doctor doubted if he would pull through.

Mrs. Wilcox was asked to break the news to her daughter. She literally

broke it. That is to say, she presented it in such disjointed fragments

that it would have puzzled a wiser head than Mrs. Nevill Tyson's to make

out the truth. Mrs. Wilcox had been much distressed by Molly's strange

indifference to her maternal claims; but when you came to think of it,

it was a very good thing that she had not cared more for the child, if

she was not to keep him. All the same, Mrs. Wilcox knew that she had an

extremely disagreeable task to perform.

They were in the porch at Thorneytoft, the bare white porch that stared

out over the fields, and down the great granite road to London. As Mrs.

Nevill Tyson listened she leaned against the wall, with her hands clasped

in front or her and her head thrown back to stop her tears from falling.

Her throat shook. She was so young--only a child herself! A broad shaft

of sunshine covered her small figure; her red dress glowed in the living

light. Looking at her, a pathetic idea came to Mrs. Wilcox. "You never

had a frock that became you more," she murmured between two sighs. Mrs.

Nevill Tyson heard neither murmur nor sighs. And yet her senses did their

work. For years afterwards she remembered that some one was standing

there in the bright sunshine, dressed in a red gown, some one who

answered when she was spoken to; but that she--she--stood apart in her

misery and was dumb.




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