We had gone perhaps a half a mile when a strange little sound escaped from Peter's lips. For the first time I looked at his little mouth, a white line stood out against the dark red color. "It's the heat," I said to myself, and asked him anxiously, "Do you feel very warm, Peterkins?" His answer was almost inaudible, and he drooped wearily against my side, as we stood there in the white road, with the distant fringe of mountains almost dancing under quivering waves of heat. Wiggles, panting, looked at us anxiously, his scrap of a tongue between his crooked teeth. "We'll go right home," said I, feigning an unconcern I did not feel. I took his hand and was terrified at the burning touch of it, realizing that the child was ill, perhaps seriously so, and that we were half a mile from home. Something like despair came over me. It was out of the question that I could carry Peter--he was a tall boy for his age and very heavy. It only remained to put my arm about him and to coax him along, a slow and painful task. We had covered the first half of the distance when I heard a car behind us, and turned hopefully to hail it. And when the long green body shot clearly into sight, I was suddenly faint with relief. Bill, coming back early from the club! Bill, at the wheel, his hat off, and the wind blowing his dark hair. The car stopped. "Mavis! It's too hot for you and Peter to be out. I didn't play--what's the matter?" I lifted Peter in my arms. "It's Peter, Bill," I said. "He's--ill." In two minutes I was in the back seat with the half-delirious boy in my arms, and Bill was urging the car to her utmost speed, and we were suddenly home. Between them, Bill and Sarah got Peter into bed. I was too frightened to be of any use. I kept thinking of the little Reynolds boy who had died of fever in that very house ... and of Peter's mother. But I didn't dare think of her long, because I could see her eyes so plainly as they looked when she said, "You'll take good care of Peter for me, won't you, Mavis?" Good care of Peter! For a week I had hardly thought of him. I kissed him mornings and nights, gave him his lessons, listened to his chatter, not really heeding. And I had been away so much, drunken with my new freedom, my strength, blooming like a plant in the climate that tried so many other people sorely: utterly wrapped up in my own sensations and impressions. I went softly into the room Peter shared with Sarah. It was a different boy tossing on the bed, with that curious flush, the groping hands, talking incessantly, incoherently. Bill, bending over him, looked up as I came in. His face was strange to me too. No, not quite. I had seen that intense, almost grim, look on that face once before--as I came out of a dark hour of agony and looked, for the first time, into two steel-blue eyes. "Oh, what is it?" I asked very low. "Is he dangerously ill?" "A touch of sun," he answered. "Yes, he's pretty sick."