m, he always
rose and left the room--no matter how long and deliberately he had
braced himself to another course of action.

It was on a Thursday that the baby was born, and it was on the following
Thursday that the circumstance of the household was reshaped.

O'Connell came in the morning, full of resolution. After he had
pronounced Mrs. Stott well on the way to recovery, he paid the usual
visit to his younger patient. The child lay, relaxed, at full length, in
the little cot which had been provided for him. His eyes were, as usual,
closed, and he had all the appearance of the ordinary hydrocephalic
idiot.

O'Connell sat down by the cot, listened to the child's breathing and
heart-beat, lifted and let fall again the lax wrist, turned back the
eyelid, revealing only the white of the upturned eyeball, and then
composed himself to await the natural waking of the child, if it were
asleep--always a matter of uncertainty.

The nurse stood near him, silent, but she looked away from the cot.

"Hydrocephalus!" murmured O'Connell, staring at his tiny patient,
"hydrocephalus, without a doubt. Eh? nurse!"

"Yes, perhaps! I don't know, doctor."

"Oh, not a doubt of it, not a doubt," repeated O'Connell, and then came
a flicker of the child's eyelids and a weak crumpling of the tiny hand.

O'Connell caught his breath and clawed at his beard. "Hydrocephalus," he
muttered with set jaw and drawn eyebrows.

The tiny hand straightened with a movement that suggested the recovery
of crushed grass, the mouth opened in a microscopic yawn, and then the
eyelids were slowly raised and a steady unwavering stare of profoundest
intelligence met O'Connell's gaze.

He clenched his hands, shifted in his chair, and then rose abruptly and
turned to the window.

"I--it won't be necessary for me to come again, nurse," he said curtly;
"they are both doing perfectly well."

"Not come again?" There was dismay in the nurse's question.

"No! No! It's unnecessary ..." He broke off, and made for the door
without another glance in the direction of the cot.

Nurse followed him downstairs.

"If I'm wanted--you can easily send for me," said O'Connell, as he went
out. As he moved away he dragged at his beard and murmured:
"Hydrocephalus, not a doubt of it."

Following his departure, Mrs. Reade heard curious and most unwonted
laughter, and cautiously blundered downstairs to investigate. She found
the nurse in an advanced condition of hysteria, laug