The boy would gradually weaken from hour to hour, until he ceased to cry, until he had no strength to cry. Gradually the weakness would increase. His face would become pallid. His rounded pink limbs wasted. His breath short and faint. He would lie exactly as placed, without power to move his body, without power to move his limbs. The little eyes would remain half open. The little fingers could no longer close around the finger of father or mother. The pale lips, parted, would no longer have strength to close at the familiar kiss. Then would come a moment when the eyes would open, the little nose become pinched, the little face haggard, and---- It was too horrible to think of. God in his mercy had spared him that sight, and given him instead a comfortable, if small, home, sufficient simple food, and the assurance of the continuance of all these. Now, more than ever, Eugene's heart went forth to his wife and child. They were no longer threatened by want. They should now lack nothing needful for comfort. The little fellow was sturdy and able to walk, and it was the father's delight to go out with Nellie and him, and walk along the streets of shops and see his wife buy the things needful for their small household, and some cheap luxury or toy for their child. It was to him a sensation of great delight that he might spend a few pence, ay, even a few shillings, without mortgaging the future heavily. He seemed suddenly to have shaken off a whole inheritance of care. He laughed frequently, and made light-hearted jokes. He sang to Nellie and his boy for mere amusement, and he made humorously extravagant promises of what he should do for both when the full tide of his good fortune set in. "Dominique and I," said he, "shall draw a line on the map, from London to Constantinople, and we will toss as to who shall go east and who west, and thus we shall take the capitals of Europe by storm. Whichever goes east the first year, goes west the second. This will be fair, and thus we shall never clash. And you shall see all the capitals of Europe, Nellie, and the boy shall be poisoned with every possible sweetmeat that Europe can devise. And I shall get awfully vain of my success, and wear the most extraordinary clothes tailors can invent. And like Napoleon crossing the Alps, in the peepshows, I shall always ride a white horse. And when I go into a new town all the people shall come out and do me homage, and we'll put up at the best hotels. And they will never ask me to pay a bill. I shall simply sing a song in the morning, and kiss my hand and go. A fine life ours will be. And there you are now, Mark. There's a first-class chance for your getting a Bath bun with the legal allowance of clinker in it." Almost every evening now, Lavirotte came. He said one evening: "I am thinking of taking a house in this neighbourhood, and I like yours very well."