“She must have been cutting the bread for his supper, and laid the knife down on the table for a moment. I--I told her never to leave it about. I have been afraid--of something!” “You have been afraid?” her husband asked quickly. “Why so?” The boy moved uneasily and turned his head to watch his father. “What you got my knife for?” he demanded. “Give me my knife!” “You shall never, never have it again!” his mother moaned, clasping him more tightly. “Why not?” he asked curiously. “What’s the matter with Dora? Why’s she lying on my bed? Tell her to get up. I am tired. Oscar wants to go to bed.” His eyelids fell and rose, as though the long search for the mysterious thing in his mind had put him into a doze. “He does not seem to know what he has done. What is it? Olaf, what is the matter with him?” “Ssh, hush! Don’t rouse him. Get him to bed. _Don’t_ let him know. I’ll look after Dora--she’s coming around now--and then I’ll call Vessinger, if it is necessary.” “No! no! not him,” she protested vehemently. “I don’t want him to see, to know anything about it,--no one, but he least of all.” Simmons looked mystified by her vehemence. “It all seems dark around me!” she moaned. “There,” he said soothingly. “Wrap him in that dressing-gown and take him to your room. I must attend to this woman.” In spite of his wife’s objections, however, he went downstairs to look for the doctor. The room and the terrace were both empty; he could see the party riding, like a group of scuttled birds, at a hard gallop down the lane at the end of the lawn. “They might have waited to find out!” he muttered. Great drops of rain splashed on the bricks about him. They had fled from his house even in the teeth of the storm. He returned hastily to the nurse, bathed the wound in the neck, and gave her some liquor from his flask. When she had gone to her room, he went downstairs once more, without crossing the hall to his wife’s room. That took a kind of courage which he did not have. Servants had lit the lamps in the long room and pulled the shades. Outside the rain swept across the terrace and beat upon the French windows. He waited, listening, irresolute, unwilling to take the future in his hands. Finally he detected a dragging step on the stairs. His wife came slowly toward him, her erect young woman’s head crushed under a weight of fear. “They have gone,” she sighed with relief. “Yes, they cleared out in the face of the storm!” “I am so glad!” “Sit down, dear,” he urged, taking her cold hands. She disengaged herself from him before he could kiss her, and sat down beside the long table in a straight stiff chair. She clasped her hands tightly and looked at her husband with a face of misery and horror. “What is it, Olaf? Tell me what it is. Tell me!” “Why, what do you mean by _it_?” he stammered. “You know!” she exclaimed passionately. “Don’t let us hide it any longer. What is the matter with little Oscar, with _our_ child?”