Forrest waited in the parlor while the doctor followed her to that inner room. It seemed a long time before they returned, but he was rubbing his plump hands. "Mrs. Kingsley was right," he said, and smiled. "There has been a change, undoubtedly. And you should have a diploma, sir; that ammonia buoyed the child over a crisis. But it must be used sparingly; sparingly." He opened his medicine case and laid out a box of tablets and a vial with a few brief directions. Then he took up his hat and top coat,—the tug was waiting for him,—and went to the door. "Of course, he is still a very sick child, but, with careful nursing, and I see he has that, he will pull through. Good night; yes, your baby will pull through." Forrest closed the door softly and came back to the fire. "Phil wasn’t in town," he said, "but I left a telegram to be forwarded. He will be able to catch the mail steamer in the morning, if he isn’t already on the way." He lifted a piece of bark from the wood-basket and laid it on the fire. She watched him. Little clouds of steam began to curl up from his clothes. Suddenly she put her hand on his arm. "Paul," she said, "what happened? How did you cross the harbor?" "Why, the _Success_ went by without stopping, and I took a small boat. I’m going now to change my clothes. When I come back you must lie down; you need some sleep." "But there wasn’t a small boat; the _Phantom_ is away with the tender; there isn’t a ship’s boat; not any kind of a rowboat on this beach. Unless—Paul, you didn’t go in that dugout?" "Yes," he said lightly, "that’s what made me so long. She isn’t fleet." "Fleet." She knew what it meant. He had shared her anxiety and care; it had been one more responsibility thrust upon him; and now, in her extremity, he had risked himself for her child. She could not tell what peril the dugout had lumbered through, but it had been peril in the darkness and that sea. And Philip, her husband, who should have been the one to face it, was doubtless passing the night gaily, in some warm and brilliant room. Oh, the shame of it, the bitterness, the sting of it! A sob broke from her lips. She sank down on a sofa and dropped her face on her arm. "I cannot—bear it," she said. "I—cannot—bear—it." She did not cry as another woman might; there was no easy rush of tears, but the long pent grief of months, borne silently through weary days and slower nights, welled and found vent to the search of a probe.