thority
that overrode every scruple, he turned in silence and tiptoed from the
room.

Mrs. Ralston's eyes followed him with scorn. How was it some doctors
managed--notwithstanding all their experience--to be such hopeless
idiots?

The soft opening of the door again a few seconds later banished her
irritation. She turned with shining welcome in her look, and met Monck
with outstretched hands.

"You're in time," she said.

He gripped her hands hard, but he scarcely looked at her. In a moment he
was bending over the bed.

"Stella girl! Stella!" he said.

"Everard!" The weak voice thrilled like a loosened harp-string, and the
man's dark face flashed into sudden passionate tenderness.

He went down upon his knees beside the bed and gathered her to his
breast. She clung to him feebly, her lips turned to his.

"My darling--oh, my darling--have you come at last?" she whispered.
"Hold me--hold me!--Don't let me die!"

He held her closer and closer to his heart, so that its fierce throbbing
beat against her own. "You shan't die," he said, "you can't die--with me
here."

She laughed a little, sobbingly. "You saved Tommy--twice over. I knew
you would save me--if you came in time. Oh, darling, how I have wanted
you! It's been--so dark and terrible."

"But you held on!" Monck's voice was very low; it came with a manifest
effort. He was holding her to his breast as if he could never let her
go.

"Yes, I held on. I knew--I knew--how--how it would hurt you--to find me
gone." Her trembling hands moved fondly about his head and finally
clasped his neck. "It's all right now," she said, with a sigh of deep
content.

Monck's lips pressed hers again and again, and Mrs. Ralston went away to
the window to hide her tears. "Please, God, don't separate them now!"
she whispered.

It was many minutes later that Stella spoke again, softly, into Monck's
ear. "Everard--darling husband--the baby--our baby--don't you--wouldn't
you like to see it?"

"The baby!" He spoke as if startled. Somehow he had concluded from the
first that the baby would be dead, and the rapture of finding her still
living had driven the thought of everything else from his mind.

"Don't move!" whispered Stella, clasping him closer. "Ask them to bring
it!"

He spoke over his shoulder to Mrs. Ralston, his voice oddly cold, almost
reluctant. "Would you be good enough to bring the baby in?"

She turned at once, smiling upon him shakily. But his dark face remai