high house, time seemed to have slipped back.

The house was all lit up as it had been on that summer night seven years
ago. Everything was the same--even to the heaped-up straw into which his
half-reluctant feet now sank. There was even a doctor's carriage drawn
up a little way from the front door, but this time it was a smart
electric brougham.

He rang the bell, and as the door opened, Jim Bellair suddenly came into
the hall, out of a room which Elwyn knew to be the smoking-room--a room
in which he and Fanny had at one time spent long hours in contented, nay
in ecstatic, dual solitude.

"I have come to inquire--I only heard to-night--" he began awkwardly,
but the other cut him short, "Yes, yes, I understand--it's awfully good
of you, Elwyn! I'm awfully glad to see you. Come in here--" and perforce
he had to follow. "The doctor's upstairs--I mean Sir Joseph Pixton.
Fanny was determined to have him, and he very kindly came, though of
course he's not a child's doctor. He's annoyed because Fanny won't have
trained nurses; but I don't suppose anything would make any difference.
It's just a fight--a fight for the little chap's life--that's what it
is, and we don't know yet who'll win."

He spoke in quick, short sentences, staring with widely open eyes at his
erstwhile friend as he spoke. "Pneumonia--I suppose you don't know
anything about it? I thought children never had such things, especially
not in hot weather."

"I had a frightful illness when I was about your boy's age," said Elwyn
eagerly. "It's the first thing I can really remember. They called it
inflammation of the lungs. I was awfully bad. My mother talks of it now,
sometimes."

"Does she?" Bellair spoke wearily. "If only one could _do_ something,"
he went on. "But you see the worst of it is that I can do
nothing--nothing! Fanny hates my being up there--she thinks it upsets
the boy. He's such a jolly little chap, Hugo. You know we called him
Peter after Fanny's father?"

Elwyn moved towards the door. He felt dreadfully moved by the other's
pain. He told himself that after all he could do no good by staying, and
he felt so ashamed, such a cur----

"You don't want to go away yet?" There was sharp chagrin, reproachful
dismay, in Bellair's voice. Elwyn remembered that in old days Jim had
always hated being alone. "Won't you stay and hear what Pixton says?
Or--or are you in a hurry?"

Elwyn turned round. "Of course I'll stay," he said briefly.

Bellair sp