"Steady, nurse," he cautioned her. "Don't get on your nerves now; there is too much at stake. Where were the others, while you were telephoning?" "Mr. Brenton had gone downstairs to get his breakfast. Mrs. Brenton was dressing in her room." "All the time?" "I--I supposed so." The nurse turned to Brenton sharply. "You met her, Mr. Brenton, when she started down the stairs?" she asked him. "I am sure I heard you speaking to her, sure that I heard her answer." Brenton wet his lips; then he passed his hand across his brow, palm outward. Both nurse and doctor could see the heavy streak of moisture gathered in the life-line. "Forgive me, doctor," he said, after a minute. "I seem dazed by this thing; it has been a long and anxious night, and I am more upset than I had supposed. Mrs. Brenton? She has gone away to church; she felt that now, if ever, she needed the help and the prayers of her own people." But the doctor was not to be put off with mere evasions. He pressed his question mercilessly, hating himself acutely, all the while. "You saw her, as the nurse says, when she first came out of her room, this morning?" "Yes." Brenton's voice had lost its resonance and sounded curiously listless, as he answered. "Yes, I saw her then, and urged her not to go." The doctor's eyes veiled themselves abruptly, and he turned away. The nurse, watching, felt he was satisfied that no blunder had occurred within the house. Brenton, though, knew differently. Watching the doctor, he was well aware that, in the doctor's mind, there were no more doubts as to the person who had made the fatal substitution than as if, like Brenton's self, his keen old eyes had rested upon the telltale drops clinging to Katharine's front breadths. The doctor's eyes had veiled themselves; Brenton had turned away and sunk down in a chair. An instant later, both the men had rallied to a swift attention. Katharine, alert, smiling a little and stepping lightly, carelessly, it seemed, was coming up the stairs. Doctor Keltridge turned to the nurse. "You must be very tired," he said, with a kindliness which yet held its own note of command. "Go now and eat a good breakfast, and then lie down. I shall be here, for the present." Then he faced back to Katharine, who stood upon the threshold. "You here, doctor?" she said jauntily, as she came in. "I'm sure it's very good of you." "Yes, Mrs. Brenton. I am here." His accent took a little from the jauntiness of Katharine's bearing. "Has anything happened?" she asked swiftly. "Happened?" The doctor's voice was grim with unphrased reproach. "How is my baby boy?" she asked again. Her well-considered flutter of agitation angered the doctor utterly. His reply came like a blow from a bludgeon. "Dead." "Doctor! My baby boy! When? How?" And Katharine, really startled now, hurried across the floor to the corner where the frilly crib shielded the quiet sleeper from her gaze.