He sat alone with her for an hour. He scarcely knew her for his wife, so unlike herself had she become under the stress of passionate woe; her face drawn in anguish, yet illumined as he had never seen it; her voice moving on a range of notes which it had never sounded. The little body lay pressed against her bosom; she would not let it be taken from her. Consolation was idle. Harvey tried to speak the thought which was his first and last as he looked at the still, waxen face; the thought of thankfulness, that this poor feeble little being was saved from life; but he feared to seem unfeeling. Alma could not yet be comforted. The sight of the last pitiful struggles had pierced her to the heart; she told of it over and over again, in words and tones profoundly touching. The doctor had been here, and would return in the evening. It was Alma now who had to be cared for; her state might easily become dangerous. When Harvey went downstairs again, he met Hughie and his nurse in the hall. The little boy ran to him. 'Mayn't I come to you, Father? Louie says I mustn't come.' 'Yes, yes; come, dear.' In the library he sat down, and took Hughie upon his knee, and pressed the soft little cheek against his own. Without mention of baby, the child asked at once if his father would not read to him as usual. 'I don't think I can tonight, Hughie.' 'Why not, Father? Because baby is dead?' 'Yes. And Mother is very poorly. I must go upstairs again soon.' 'Is Mother going to be dead?' asked the child, with curiosity rather than fear. 'No! No!' 'But--but if mother went there, she could fetch baby back again.' 'Went where?' Hughie made a vague upward gesture. 'Louie says baby is gone up into the sky.' Perhaps it was best so. What else can one say to a little child of four years old? Harvey Rolfe had no choice but to repeat what seemed good to Louie the nursemaid. But he could refrain from saying more. Alma was in a fever by night-time. There followed days and days of misery; any one hour of which, as Rolfe told himself, outbalanced all the good and joy that can at best be hoped for in threescore years and ten. But Alma clung to life. Harvey had thought she would ask for her little son, and expend upon him the love called forth by her dead baby; she seemed, however, to care even less for Hughie than before. And, after all, the bitter experience had made little change in her. CHAPTER 7 Since the removal from Pinner, Rolfe had forgotten his anxieties with regard to money. Expenses were reduced; not very greatly, but to a point which made all the difference between just exceeding his income and living just within it. He had not tried to economise, and would scarcely have known how to begin; it was the change in Alma's mode of life that brought about this fortunate result. With infinite satisfaction he dismissed from his mind the most hateful of all worries.