"Have you any _children_?" cry I, suddenly, bundling with my usual fine tact head-foremost into the conversation (where I am clearly not wanted, and altogether forgetting Barbara's warning injunction) with my unnecessary and malapropos query. For a moment she looks only astonished; then an expression of pain crosses her face, and a slight contraction passes over her features. Evidently, she _had_ a child, and it is _dead_. She is going to _cry_! At this awful thought, I grow scarlet, and Algy darts a furious look at me. What _have_ I said? I have outdone myself. How far worse a case than the fugitive wife whose destiny I was so resolute to learn from her injured husband! "I am so sorry," I stammer--"I never thought--I did not know--" "It is of no consequence," she answers, speaking with some difficulty, and with a slight but quite musical tremor in her voice--very different from the ugly gulpings and catchings of the breath which always set off _my_ tears--"but the fact is, that I _have_ one little one--and--and--she no longer lives with me; my husband's people have taken her; I am sure that they meant it for the best; only--only--I am afraid I cannot quite manage to talk of her yet" (turning away from me, and looking up into Algy's face with a showery smile). Then, as if unable to run the risk of any other further shock to her feelings, she rises and takes her leave; Algy eagerly attending her to the door. The old deaf gentleman departs at the same time, loading Barbara with polite parting messages to her husband, and bowing distantly to _me_. Algy reënters presently, looking cross and ruffled. "You really are _too_ bad, Nancy!" he says, harshly, throwing himself into the chair lately occupied by Mrs. Huntley. "You grow worse every day--one would think you did it on purpose--riding rough-shod over people's feelings." I stand aghast. Formerly, I used not to mind rough words; but I think Roger must have spoilt me; they make me wince now. "But--but--it was not _dead_!" I say, whimpering; "it had only gone to visit its grandmother." "Never you mind, my Nancy!" says Barbara, in a whisper, drawing me away to the window, and pressing her soft, cool lips, to the flushed misery of my cheeks; "she was not hurt a bit! her eyes were as dry as a bone!" CHAPTER XXV. One more day is gone. We are one day nearer Roger's return. This is the way in which I am growing to look at the flight of time; just as, in Dresden, I joyfully marked each sunset, as bringing me twenty-four hours nearer home and the boys. And now the boys are within reach; at a wish I could have them all round me; and still, in my thoughts, I hurry the slow days, and blame them for dawdling. With all their broad, gold sunshine, and their rainbow-colored flowers, I wish them away.