"What can be the matter with you, Margaret?" he cried. "I cannot imagine why you are crying in that silly way." "I'll try not to cry any more, Robert," she answered. "Yes, but you look in such dreadful distress; I assure you, it affects me most disagreeably, and in my state of nerves!--you know, don't you, that nothing ever annoys me more than weak, womanish tears." "It is impossible for me to be cheerful to-night," said the wife. "The pain is too great. He was our only child, and such--such a darling." Awdrey laughed. "Forgive me, my dear," he said, "I really would not hurt your feelings for the world, but you must know, if you allow your common sense to speak, that we never had a child. It has surely been one of our great trials that no child has been given to us to carry on the old line. My poor Maggie," he went up to her quite tenderly, put his arm round her neck, and kissed her, "you must be very unwell to imagine these sort of things." She suddenly took the hand which lay on her shoulder between both her own. "Come with me, Robert," she said, an expression of the most intense despair on all her features, "come, I cannot believe that this blight which has passed over you can be final. I'll take you to the room where the little body of our beautiful child is lying. When you see that sweet face, surely you will remember." He frowned when she began to speak; now he disengaged his hand from her clasp. "It would not be right for me to humor you," he said. "You ought to see a doctor, Maggie, for you are really suffering from a strong delusion. If you encourage it it may become fixed, and even assume the proportions of a sort of insanity. Now, my dear wife, try and restrain yourself and listen to me." She gazed at him with wide-open eyes. As he spoke she had difficulty in believing her own ears. A case like his was indeed new to her. She had never really believed in the tragedy of his house--but now at last the suspected and dreaded blow had truly fallen. Awdrey, like his ancestors before him, was forgetting the grave events of life. Was it possible that he could forget the child, whose life had been the joy of his existence, whose last looks of love had been directed to him, whose last faltering words had breathed his name? Yes, he absolutely forgot all about the child. The stern fact stared her in the face, she could not shut her eyes to it.