It was past ten before Violet came back. He found her in the sitting-room, standing in the light of the gas flame she had just lit. Her eyes shone; her face was flushed. She panted a little as if (so he thought) she had hurried, being late. "Well," he said to her, "have you had your little run?" She stared and flung three words at him. "I wanted it!" And still she stared. "Vi--" he began. "Well--what's the matter with you?" "Nothing's the matter with _me_. But I'm afraid Baby's going to be ill." She stood before him, her breast heaving. She drew her breath in and let it out again in a snort of exasperation. "What makes you think so?" "Something Winny said." "What does she know about it?" He wanted to say "A jolly sight more than you do," but he stopped himself in time. He began to talk gently to her. And Violet was horribly upset. Wrap it up as tenderly as he might, there was no mistaking the awfulness of the charge he brought against her. He had as good as taxed her with neglecting Baby. She had recourse to subterfuge; she sheltered herself behind lies, laid on one on the top of the other, little silly transparent lies, but such a thundering lot of them that Ranny could say of each that it was jolly thin and of the whole that it was a bit too thick. That brought her round, and he wondered whether gentleness was the best method for Violet after all. He was disgusted, for he hated subterfuge. And she might just as well have owned up at once; for in a day or two she was defenseless. The Baby was ill; and the illness was accusation and evidence and proof positive and punishment all rolled into one; Baby's sufferings being due to the cause that Ransome had assigned. It had been poisoned, suddenly, from milk gone sour in the abominable bottles, and slowly, subtly poisoned from the still more abominable state of its Baby's Comforter. Ransome and his wife sat up three nights running, and the doctor came twice a day. And every time, except on the last night, when the Baby nearly died, the doctor spoke brutally to Violet. _He_ knew that gentleness was not a bit of good. CHAPTER XVIII Still, that was in August, and they could put a good half of it down to the hot weather. Besides, the Baby got over it. With all its accusing and witnessing, it was, as Ranny said, a forgiving little thing; it had never in its life done anybody any harm. It did not hurt Violet now. And the hot days passed; weeks passed; months passed, and winter and spring. The Baby had one little attack after another. It marked the passage of the months by its calamities; and still these might be put down to the cold weather or the stress of teething. Then, in a temperate week of May, nineteen-six, it did something decisive. It nearly died again of enteritis; and again it was forgiving and got over it. There could be no doubt that things would have been simpler if it had been cruel enough to die. For the question was: What were they to do now?