“He’ll do, he’ll live,” she muttered. “Luke Tarbot, what a sell for you! He’ll live, he’ll live! Thank God! Yes, I can manage everything my own way now. Luke thought himself cleverer than I. I am playing my own game, and this”—she glanced at the child—“this little fellow is the ace of trumps.” Nurse Ives presently lifted the boy and carried him into the next room. She undressed him and lay down beside him, taking him in her arms. The child slept during all the night, but the woman lay awake. She was too excited to sleep—she was a desperate woman, and she was playing a desperate game. In the morning the child awoke, looking much better. He was now lively and full of questions, anxious to go home, talking frequently about his mother, about Barbara and Dick. “Why are you keeping me here?” he said to Nurse Clara, but though he asked the question he was not in the least alarmed. He was only seven years old: a precocious boy of his age; but at seven our faith is large, and we believe, as a rule, what is said to us. During the following day Nurse Ives did not dare to leave him. While she watched him, and played with him, and chatted and got him to tell her his innocent thoughts, she was turning over a weighty problem in her mind. It would, she felt certain, be madness to confide her secret to another, and yet she knew that if she married Tarbot, as she meant to do almost immediately, she must get some one to help her in the care of the boy. Early in the evening Nurse Ives took the child in her arms and rocked him off to sleep. He was wide awake when she began and resisted her efforts. “Don’t stare at me,” he said, beginning to shudder. “I don’t like it.” She took no notice. She did not mean to mesmerize him again after to-night, but to-night she must do it. It was all important that he should remain absolutely quiet during Tarbot’s visit. She fixed her eyes on his face. Soon his bright dark eyes looked steadily into hers, and a curious look came into them. He closed them in a few moments, repose settled down over each feature, his breath came softly and gently. She carried him then into her little bedroom, put him in the bed which she had previously warmed, and, putting a nightlight in a distant corner, softly shut the door. He was mesmerized into a tranquil sleep, not in the least resembling the cataleptic state in which he was the night before. Nurse Ives now felt certain that the child would sleep undisturbed during Tarbot’s visit. CHAPTER X. “DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.”