“What does it matter?” she cried. “Dr. Eden doesn’t want me to be with him, Mr. Fortune. He is still in pain. And I don’t think Dr. Eden knows.” Dr. Eden came down in time to hear that. A large young man, he stood over them looking very awkward and uncomfortable. “I’m sure Dr. Eden has done everything that can be done,” said Reggie gently. “I’ll go up, please.” And they left the mother to her husband, that flushed, gaunt face peering round the corner as they kept step on the stairs. “The child’s seven years old,” said Eden. “There’s no history of any gastric trouble. Rather a good digestion. And then this--out of the blue!” Reggie went into a nursery where a small boy lay huddled and restless with all the apparatus of sickness by his bed. He raised a pale face on which beads of sweat stood. “Hallo, Gerald,” Reggie said quietly. “Mother sent me up to make you all right again.” He took the child’s hand and felt for the pulse. “I’m Mr. Fortune, your fortune, good fortune.” The child tried to smile and Reggie’s hands moved over the uneasy body and all the while he murmured softly nonsense talk. . . . The child did not want him to go, but at last he went off with Eden into a corner of the room. “Quite right to send for me,” he said gravely, and Eden put his hand to his head. “I know. I know. It’s horrible when it’s a child. One of the irritant poisons. Probably arsenic. Have you given an emetic?” “He’s been very sick. And he’s so weak.” “I know. Have you got anything with you?” “I sent home. But I didn’t care to----” “I’ll do it. Sulphate of zinc. You go and send for a nurse. And find some safe milk. I wouldn’t use the household stuff.” “My God, Fortune! Surely it was at the party?” “Not the household stuff,” Reggie repeated, and he went back to the child. . . . It was many hours afterwards that he came softly downstairs. In the hall husband and wife met him. It seemed to him that it was the man who had been crying. “Are you going away?” Mrs. Warnham said. “There’s no more pain. He is asleep.” Her eyes darkened. “You mean he’s--dead?” the man gasped. “I hope he’ll live longer than any of us, Captain Warnham. But no one must disturb him. The nurse will be watching, you know. And I’m sure we all want to sleep sound--don’t we?” He was gone. But he stayed a moment on the doorstep. He heard emotions within. On the next afternoon Dr. Eden came into his laboratory at St. Saviour’s. “One moment. One moment.” Reggie was bent over a notebook. “When I go to hell they’ll set me doing sums.” He frowned at his figures. “The third time is lucky. That’s plausible if it isn’t right. Well, how’s our large patient?” “He’s doing well. Quite easy and cheerful.” Reggie stood up. “I think we might say, thank God.” “Yes, rather. I thought he was gone last night, Fortune. He would have been without you. It was wonderful how he bucked up in your hands. You ought to have been a children’s specialist.”