. Learn 'im to open his mouth,
learn 'im to close 'is 'ands, learn 'im to go to sleep, learn 'im
everythink. I've never seen nothink like it, never in all my days, and
I've 'elped to bring a few into the world.... I can't begin to tell you
about it, Mr. Stott, and that's the solemn truth. When 'e first looked
at me, I near 'ad a faint. A old-fashioned, wise sort of look as 'e
might 'a been a 'undred. 'Lord 'elp us, nurse,' I says, 'Lord 'elp us.'
I was that opset, I didn't rightly know what I was a-saying...."

Stott pushed past the agitated Mrs. Reade, and went into the
sitting-room. He had had neither breakfast nor lunch; there was no sign
of any preparation for his tea, and the fireplace was grey with the
cinders of last night's fire. For some minutes he sat in deep
despondency, a hero faced with the uncompromising detail of domestic
neglect. Then he rose and called to the nurse.

She appeared at the head of the steep, narrow staircase. "Sh!" she
warned, with a finger to her lips.

"I'm goin' out again," said Stott in a slightly modulated voice.

"Mrs. Reade's coming back presently," replied the nurse, and looked over
her shoulder.

"Want me to wait?" asked Stott.

The nurse came down a few steps. "It's only in case any one was wanted,"
she began, "I've got two of 'em on my hands, you see. They're both doing
well as far as that goes. Only ..." She broke off and drifted into small
talk. Ever and again she stopped and listened intently, and looked back
towards the half-open door of the upstairs room.

Stott fidgeted, and then, as the flow of conversation gave no sign of
running dry, he dammed it abruptly. "Look 'ere, miss," he said, "I've
'ad nothing to eat since last night."

"Oh! dear!" ejaculated the nurse. "If--perhaps, if you'd just stay here
and listen, I could get you something." She seemed relieved to have some
excuse for coming down.

While she bustled about the kitchen, Stott, half-way upstairs, stayed
and listened. The house was very silent, the only sound was the hushed
clatter made by the nurse in the kitchen. There was an atmosphere of
wariness about the place that affected even so callous a person as
Stott. He listened with strained attention, his eyes fixed on the
half-open door. He was not an imaginative man, but he was beset with
apprehension as to what lay behind that door. He looked for something
inhuman that might come crawling through the aperture, something
grotesque, preternaturally w