“Mr. Drew says the child is half idiotic.” “If it’s not, the nurse soon will be—Phew—take the reins!” She only knew she had them in a bundle in her hands, and Humphrey was off, then there struck on her ear a crash of sound, and through it one thin high shriek and a long wailing. For a second her eyes floated in darkness, then the express thundered on and she could see a confused mass of men and women bending down over something. “That distinct definite shriek was awful!” Gwen found herself thinking, with curious composure, though she knew perfectly well that her husband had very likely lost his life to save that of a congenital idiot. He was only stunned, however, and the infant had got off scot-free. When he came to her, Gwen was very white in sheer disgust at her own want of emotion, and Strange knew as distinctly as if she had told him the cause of her pallor. He would not wait for the books, but turned the horses’ heads homewards and set off at a smart trot. “That amiable infant,” he said, when they had cleared the village, “it seems, felt itself moved to commit suicide in order to spite its nurse; it has been a long-standing threat, the woman says. It threw itself on its stomach before the in-coming train. By Jove! It was a close shave, we only got off by the skin of our teeth!” She would have liked to touch him, to let her eyes melt in his sight, to make her lips tremble, but she could not for the life of her. She knew he had acted like a hero, but as she had known before, he couldn’t do any other thing when the call came; it did not seem in any way to alter matters. Then she began to speculate as to what would have happened if perchance he had _not_ come off by the skin of his teeth. She looked curiously at him and wondered. “I haven’t a notion,” she concluded at last, and she was silent for a long time and very pale. “Was the game worth the candle?” she asked, as they went through the terrace gates. “You had said a minute before, the Lord would do well to remove the child.” “Probably not, but when a man happens to be in a desperate hurry he can’t stop to go all round a question. I must go to the stables myself, there is something wrong with Boccaccio’s off hoof. Shall I help you up the steps—you look white?” “No, thank you—I wish—I wish—” she said slowly; she never finished her sentence, but went wearily into the house without turning her head. “I wish to Heaven I knew what he thinks of it all—how much he minds!” she whispered to herself, with noiseless passion, as soon as she got into her room. “Even in this dead-level life a big thing has come and gone, and has left me precisely as it found me.” She smote her hands together sharply, then she rang for her maid; she dared not be alone, her control over herself was on its last legs.