"Katharine," he said very gravely; "you must have seen that the baby is
only just alive."
Katharine's glance was resting anxiously upon a drop or two of water on
the fingers of her glove. She seemed not to have heard her husband's
words. He repeated them.
"Katharine, can't you see that our baby, our little boy, is going
fast?"
Katharine looked up.
"Nonsense, Scott!" she said, with perfect calm. "The baby is as well as
he was, last night. If he is so desperately ill, the nurse wouldn't
have gone away and left him all alone, as I found him. The nurse knows
what she is about; that is," swiftly she corrected herself; "she would,
if Doctor Keltridge would let her alone. If anything does happen to the
child, it will be through you."
"Through me?" Brenton whitened.
"Yes," Katharine answered, reckless of her husband's hurt, reckless,
too, of the probable state of his nerves, after his all-night vigil. "I
could have cured baby, if you had kept out of it. Your doctors' poisons
have done harm enough; but your fears, your distrust, have been the
final touch. If you had let me alone, I could have saved him. Even now,
it may not be too late." She turned, her chin in the air and her eyes
bright with anger, although about her lips there lurked a little smile
of pleasure in what seemed to her her own excessive self-control.
Brenton's self-control, though, was the greater. However much his voice
might shake, the hand he laid upon her arm was singularly steady.
"Katharine, my dear wife," he said; "I must beg you not to go away from
the house just now."
"Why not?" Katharine's voice was metallic in its hardness.
"I am afraid you will be sorry for ever, if you do. The baby--"
She shook his hand away.
"It is for the baby I am going, Scott. Here and alone, I am powerless
to counteract the harm you do. I must have help."
"What help?" he asked her hoarsely, while his eyes, almost unseeingly,
were busy with a thin trickle of water that clung to the front breadths
of her pale-brown gown.
"The help of my church, of their combined prayers. Alone, I can do
nothing. I must ask them all to help me, if my baby boy is to be saved
from the consequences of his father's doubts."
"Katharine!"
But, with a flutter of her skirts, she had vanished from the room,
smiling and self-reliant and very, very smug. To her belief, she had
borne down the ignorant oppression of the unbeliever; she had given
testimony to her indomitable confidence in her new creed; she was about
to give still stronger testimony to the indomitable healing power of
that same creed.
And Brenton, left alone, shut his teeth hard upon the ugly words that
struggled to his lips. Then, white and wan, less from his all-night
vigil than from the five-minute altercation with his wife, he turned
away and re-entered the room where the child was lying.
It needed no eye skilled in watching the advance of death to be aware
that the little life was ebbing fast. The look of waxiness had been
increasing, all night long; the breathing was becoming fitful; the tiny
figure seemed relaxed in every weakening limb. The eyes, though heavy
and lustreless, were wide, wide open, and the white little lips wavered
into a ghost of a smile, as Brenton crossed the threshold. Then one
little hand stirred ever so slightly, strove to lift itself in
greeting, failed.
"Daddy's boy!" Brenton said, as bravely as he could.
The ghost of the smile grew a bit stronger, as Brenton sat down beside
the crib and, after his custom of these later days, held out one brown
forefinger. Instantly, the wan little claw closed around the finger,
the baby nestled slightly, and then fell into a light doze.
The nurse's voice, when she spoke, failed to penetrate the doze.
"I called up Doctor Keltridge, and he said he had a broken hip to set
at once. It may be two hours, before he can get here. He told me to
keep up the stimulant."
"You have used it?"
"Once, while you were talking to Mrs. Brenton. It is nearly time,
again."
"Did it----" Brenton's voice failed him utterly.
The nurse hedged.
"It is too soon yet to know. The second dose ought to show more."
But the second dose did not show, nor yet the third. After the fourth
one, the nurse looked up.
"Can you telephone to Mrs. Brenton?" she asked.
"You think?"
"That she should be here. Can you get her?"
And then Brenton was forced to confess the truth. The nurse accepted
the truth as mercifully as she was able.
"Poor little woman!" she said. "Isn't it wonderful the hold the thing
gets--"
Her question was never ended. Instead, she laid her hand on Brenton's
sleeve.
"Look!" she whispered.
All at once, the doze had ended. With its ending, all look of tiredness
and suffering had gone away out of the baby face. Instead, the little
eyes were eager; the little lips were breaking into a smile of utter
joyousness; the little arms were up-stretched strongly, the hands wide
open and shaking in happy recognition.
"Nurse!" Then Brenton steadied himself with a mighty effort, and bent
forward to hold out his arms. "Daddy take boy?" he urged gently, in his
accustomed phrase.
There came an instantaneous check upon the baby's eagerness. The head
turned, while the eyes met Brenton's without a spark of response. Then
once again the little arms shot upward above the brightening face where
the eager look of recognition was changing fast to a happiness
ineffable, to a glad surety that the vision opened to the baby eyes
alone was far beyond the dreams which mortal mind could fashion.
Then the little arms dropped backward; but the ineffable happiness
remained.
Gently, very gently, Scott Brenton folded the baby hands across the
muslin nightie, and smoothed the ruffled baby hair above the waxy brow.
Then, half unconsciously,--
"For Thine is the Kingdom," he said.
And then, a little later on, he wondered why he had said it.