Snugly in bed, in the room that former tenants had fitted as a nursery--but unused now for that purpose, to Irene’s wistful regret--her one sadness--lay the little girl. Irene went up to her, drew back the bedclothes and tenderly exposed her shoulders and bosom. “Look,” she said. He bent over; the flesh was livid with bruises. “I should like to go among them with a flaming sword,” she cried, “and sweep them off the face of the earth.” “I wish you could, before the child they are expecting is born to them,” he said, grimly. He sketched his visit. Irene gave but half heed. His first remark had struck a strongly vibrating chord. “Let us pray to God that it is never born alive,” she said. “To think that such brute-beasts can have a child and--oh, why are they allowed to bring them into the world, and given the most glorious privilege of humanity?” “The next best privilege is to be able to do what you’re doing now,” said Hugh, consolingly. “But what is it, after all? It is like trying to stop an avalanche and just getting hold of a handful of snow.” “Well, you’ve got your handful.” “Poor little thing,” said Irene. She tucked the clothes around her, and, after a few nurse-like touches to the arrangements of the room, took Hugh downstairs. Lunch was ready. They sat down together. Gerard was absent on his fishing visit. They imagined him glowering at the weather through Weston’s dining-room windows. “What will he say to our little friend upstairs?” asked Hugh, helping himself to claret. “What do you mean?” “Well, you can’t settle her comfortably for life at a moment’s notice.” Irene opened her eyes wide. “Do you mean that he won’t be pleased to have her here? My _dear_ Hugh!” He smiled inwardly, but prudently changed the topic; enquired as to her discovery of the child. “Why was she herself out in such awful weather?” “I was taking some trifles to a girl who is ill,” she answered. The rest of her explanation agreed with Hugh’s conjecture. Driving back, she had seen a woman trying to get the child on its feet. She had stopped the cab and swooped off with her prize. “But you needn’t have risked your own life by taking off your sealskin and coming home in that flimsy thing,” he said, with a smile. “Even St. Martin didn’t do that.” “Do you know,” she replied, with a charming viciousness, and leaning over the table, “I consider St. Martin one of the meanest characters in history!” Some time after lunch, the servant came into the smoking-room and announced that Mr. Jackson had called. “He’s a very horrid-looking man, ma’am,” she remarked. “I’ll go and settle him,” said Hugh, rising. “No. Let me. I shall enjoy it,” replied Irene. And she departed, with the light of battle in her eyes. She met the man in the hall. He began to bluster. Hugh, by a turn of the passage, stood an unobserved spectator. “You’re not going to have the child back,” said Irene. “Then I’ll have compensation,” said the man.