It was no one's fault. No one could be blamed. Jack was old enough to understand and obey, was proverbially docile and obedient. Under the same circumstances at home he would have been left without a qualm. The unusual circumstances had created an unusual restlessness not to be anticipated. Even at that bitter moment Joan realised that if it was a question of blame, she herself was at fault in having allowed the child to take part in the tableau against her husband's better judgment. A smaller nature might have found relief in scattering blame wholesale, but there was a generosity in Irish Esmeralda's nature which lifted her above the temptation. In the midst of her anguish she spared a moment to comfort Pixie by a breathless "Not your fault!" before she became unconscious of everything but the moaning figure on the bed. The treatment of Jack's burns was completed with praiseworthy expedition. The local chemist flew on winged feet to his shop in the village street, whence he brought back all that was required. Nurse and doctor sent away the relatives, and worked with swift, tender fingers; and presently a swathed, motionless figure was carried out to an impromptu ambulance, fitted up inside the great car, while the late audience stood massed together in the street, looking on silent and motionless--silent as to speech, but from every heart in that crowd went up a cry to God, and every mother in the village knelt that night beside her bed and prayed with tears for the life of little Jack Hilliard, and for the support and comfort of his father and mother. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jack lay motionless in the darkened room, a tiny form outlined beneath the bedclothes; on the pillow was a swathe of bandages, with barely an inch between to show the small, scarred face. The night before, with tossing curls, flushed cheeks, and curving coral lips, he had lain a picture of childish beauty, at sight of which his parents' hearts had glowed with tenderness and pride as they paid their good-night visit. "He looks flushed. All this rehearsing is exciting. I shall be glad when the tableaux are over," Geoffrey had said, and Joan had whispered back ardently-- "But so _lovely_! If he looks like that to-morrow!" And this was to-morrow; and there on the bed lay Jack, shorn, blinded, tortured--a marble image that moaned, and moaned...