A sharp cry escaped from Mrs. St. John as she listened. The words seemed to tear the flimsy make-believe veil from her eyes: the end was very near: and who knows how long she had felt the conviction? They had halted this time at Ypres, a city of Belgium, or West Flanders, famous for its manufactures of cloths and serges. Handsome apartments were hastily procured, and George was moved into them. Not very ill yet did the child appear; only so terribly worn and weak. Mrs. St. John's anguish, who shall tell of it? She loved this child, as you have seen, with a fierce, jealous love. He was the only being in the world who had filled every crevice of her proud and impassioned heart. It was for his sake she had hated Benja; it was by Benja's death--and she alone knew whether she had in any shape contributed to that death, or whether she was wholly innocent--that he had benefited. That some dread was upon her, apart from the child's state, was evident--clinging to her like a nightmare. The disease took a suddenly decisive form the second day after their settling down at Ypres, telling of danger, speaking palpably of the end. He could not have been moved from Ypres now, had it been ever so much wished for. Mrs. St. John called in, one after another, the chief doctors of the town; she summoned over at a great expense two physicians from London; she sent an imperative mandate to Mr. Pym; and not one of them saw the slightest chance of saving the boy's life. She watched his fair face grow paler; his feverish limbs waste and become weaker. She never shed a tear. For days together she would be almost unnaturally calm; but once or twice a burst of anguish had broken from her, fearful in itself, painful to witness. One of these paroxysms was yielded to in the presence of the child. Yielded to? Poor thing! perhaps she could not help it! George was frightened almost to death. She flung herself about the large old foreign room as one insane, tearing her hair, and calling upon the child to live--to live. "Mamma, don't, don't!" panted the little lad, in his terror. "Don't be so sorry for me! I am going to heaven, to be with Benja." At his first cry she had stopped and fallen on her knees beside him. Up again now; up again at the words, and darting about as if possessed by a demon, her hands to her temples. "Oh, mamma, don't frighten me," shrieked the child. "I shall be glad to go to Benja." Cease, Georgy, cease! for every innocent word that you utter seems but renewed torture to your poor mother. Look at her, as she sinks down there on the floor, and groans aloud in her sharp agony.