he must have died instantly. It was heart failure!" His eyes searched
the young man's agitated face.

"May I ask who you are?" he inquired, faintly amazed.

"Yes." The Beggar Man glanced down at Faith.

"She is my wife," he said, briefly.

"Your wife! That child!" The amazed words were out before the doctor
could check them, and he hastened to apologize. "I beg your pardon, but
she looks so young."

"She is young," said the Beggar Man, flintily. "I am nearly twenty years
older than she is."

Faith was coming back to consciousness, and the doctor said hurriedly:
"I think it will be better for you to go away for the present, if you
will--I want her to be kept quite quiet."

Nicholas went out into the narrow passage. The twins had returned and
were squabbling over an enormous bag of sticky sweets. They hailed
Nicholas with delight.

"I thought I said you were to buy chocolates?" he said, with pretended
severity.

He sat down on the stairs and took the bag from them, dividing it into
equal parts and sharing out its contents. "Ough! How sticky," he
complained, with a little grimace.

"Nice!" said the twins, unanimously. They were quite happy; nobody had
told them, poor mites, of their irreparable loss.

Nicholas did his best to amuse them. He was worried and unhappy, but he
racked the recesses of his brain for forgotten fairy tales, and told
them of the wolves that used to howl over the prairie at night when he
was a boy and of a tiger which his father had once shot in India.

They listened, wide-eyed and wondering, and when at last he paused they
both scrambled to their feet.

"Tell Mums! Go and tell Mums!"

That was the beginning of the trouble. In vain he tried to put them off
with stories that their mother was not well, that her head ached, that
she was lying down and must not be disturbed. The twins were
disbelieving, grew angry, and finally broke into tears and sobs.

Nicholas took them up, one on each arm, and carried them into the
kitchen. He was afraid they would disturb Faith. He sat down in a big
old armchair, a child on each knee, and soothed and petted, and made
vague promises for the morrow if they were good, until finally they both
fell asleep with his arms round them.

It was getting late then. A clock on the kitchen shelf struck eight, but
Nicholas was afraid to move. His arms were cramped, and he was racked
with anxiety for Faith, but he sat doggedly on until the kindly
neighbour and th