“Hush!” answered Harriet, and dandled the bundle laboriously, like some bony prophetess--Judith, or Deborah, or Jael. He had last seen the baby sprawling on the knees of Miss Abbott, shining and naked, with twenty miles of view behind him, and his father kneeling by his feet. And that remembrance, together with Harriet, and the darkness, and the poor idiot, and the silent rain, filled him with sorrow and with the expectation of sorrow to come. Monteriano had long disappeared, and he could see nothing but the occasional wet stem of an olive, which their lamp illumined as they passed it. They travelled quickly, for this driver did not care how fast he went to the station, and would dash down each incline and scuttle perilously round the curves. “Look here, Harriet,” he said at last, “I feel bad; I want to see the baby.” “Hush!” “I don’t mind if I do wake him up. I want to see him. I’ve as much right in him as you.” Harriet gave in. But it was too dark for him to see the child’s face. “Wait a minute,” he whispered, and before she could stop him he had lit a match under the shelter of her umbrella. “But he’s awake!” he exclaimed. The match went out. “Good ickle quiet boysey, then.” Philip winced. “His face, do you know, struck me as all wrong.” “All wrong?” “All puckered queerly.” “Of course--with the shadows--you couldn’t see him.” “Well, hold him up again.” She did so. He lit another match. It went out quickly, but not before he had seen that the baby was crying. “Nonsense,” said Harriet sharply. “We should hear him if he cried.” “No, he’s crying hard; I thought so before, and I’m certain now.” Harriet touched the child’s face. It was bathed in tears. “Oh, the night air, I suppose,” she said, “or perhaps the wet of the rain.” “I say, you haven’t hurt it, or held it the wrong way, or anything; it is too uncanny--crying and no noise. Why didn’t you get Perfetta to carry it to the hotel instead of muddling with the messenger? It’s a marvel he understood about the note.” “Oh, he understands.” And he could feel her shudder. “He tried to carry the baby--” “But why not Gino or Perfetta?”