The old Doctor watched her, shook his head, signed to the husband to leave the room, and took his wife's hands in his place. As Carter went out Mrs. Larue followed him a few steps into the passage. "What is between you and me must end," she whispered. "Yes," he replied in the same tone, and went to his room somewhat comforted. At seven in the morning he was awakened by a tremulous knocking at his door. Springing from the sofa, on which he had dozed for an hour or two without undressing, he opened, and encountered Mrs. Larue, pale with sleeplessness but smiling gaily. "_Venez_," she said, speaking her mother tongue in her haste, and hastened noiselessly, like a swift sprite, back to the sick room. Carter followed, entered with a sense of awe, passed softly around the screen which half encircled the bed, and saw his wife and child lying side by side. Lillie was very pale; her face was still spiritualized by the Gethsemane of the night; but her eyes were still radiant with a purely human happiness. She was in eager haste to have him drink at the newly-opened fountain of joy. Even as he stooped to kiss her she could not wait, but turned her head towards the infant with a smile of exultation and said, "Look at him." "But how are _you_?" he asked, anxiously; for a man does not at once forget his wife in his offspring; and Carter had a stain of remorse on his soul which he needed to wash away with rivers of tenderness. "Oh, I am perfectly well," she answered. "Isn't he pretty?" At that moment the child sneezed; the air of this world was too pungent. "Oh, take him!" she exclaimed, looking for the nurse. "He is going to die." The black woman lifted the boy and handed him to the father. "Don't drop him," said Lillie. "Are you sure you can hold him? I wouldn't dare to take him." As if she could have taken him! In her eagerness she forgot that she was sick, and talked as if she were in her full strength. Her eyes followed the infant so uneasily about the room that Elderkin motioned Carter to replace him on the bed. "Now he won't fall," she said, cheerfully.--"It was only a sneeze," she added presently, with a little laugh which was like a gurgle, a purr of happiness. "I thought something was the matter with him."--Shortly afterward she asked, "How soon will he talk?" "I am afraid not for two or three weeks, unless the weather is favorable," replied Elderkin, with a chuckle which under the circumstances was almost blasphemous. "How strange that he can't talk!" she replied, without noticing the old gentleman's joke. "He looks so intelligent!" "She wouldn't be a bit surprised to hear him sing an Italian opera," said Ravenel. "She has seen a miracle to-day. Nothing could astonish her."