Godfrey made no reply--neither apologized nor sought to cover. "Why, child!" he said at last, "you are half starved!" The pity and tenderness of both word and tone were too much for her. She had not been at all pitying herself, but such an utterance from the man she loved like an elder brother so wrought upon her enfeebled condition that she broke into a cry. She strove to suppress her emotion; she fought with it; in her agony she would have rushed from the room, had not Godfrey caught her, drawn her down beside him, and kept her there. "You shall not leave me!" he said, in that voice Letty had always been used to obey. "Who has a right to know how things go with you, if I have not? Come, you must tell me all about it." "I have nothing to tell, Cousin Godfrey," she replied with some calmness, for Godfrey's decision had enabled her to conquer herself, "except that baby is ill, and looks as if he would never get better, and it is like to break my heart. Oh, he is such a darling, Cousin Godfrey!" "Let me see him," said Godfrey, in his heart detesting the child--the visible sign that another was nearer to Letty than he. She jumped up, almost ran into the next room, and, coming back with her little one, laid him in Godfrey's arms. The moment he felt the weight of the little, sad-looking, sleeping thing, he grew human toward him, and saw in him Letty and not Tom. "Good God! the child is starving, too," he exclaimed. "Oh, no, Cousin Godfrey!" cried Letty; "he is not starving. He had a fresh-laid egg for breakfast this morning, and some arrowroot for dinner, and some bread and milk for tea--" "London milk!" said Godfrey. "Well, it is not like the milk in the dairy at Thornwick," admitted Letty. "If he had milk like that, he would soon be well!" But Godfrey dared not say, "Bring him to Thornwick": he knew his mother too well for that! "When were you anywhere in the country?" he asked. In a negative kind of way he was still nursing the baby. "Not since we were married," she answered, sadly. "You see, poor Tom can't afford it." Now Godfrey happened to have heard, "from the best authority," that Tom's mother was far from illiberal to him. "Mrs. Helmer allows him so much a year--does she not?" he said. "I know he gets money from her, but it can't be much," she answered. Godfrey's suspicions against Tom increased every moment. He must learn the truth. He would have it, if by an even cruel experiment! He sat a moment silent--then said, with assumed cheerfulness: "Well, Letty, I suppose, for the sake of old times, you will give me some dinner?"