eakfast-service rang.

I begged Miss Ambient to go up and try to have speech of her
sister-in-law, and I drew Mark out into the garden. "You 're exceedingly
nervous, and Mrs. Ambient is probably right," I said to him. "Women
know; women should be supreme in such a situation. Trust a mother--a
devoted mother, my dear friend!" With such words as these I tried to
soothe and comfort him, and, marvellous to relate, I succeeded, with the
help of many cigarettes, in making him walk about the garden and talk,
or listen at least to my own ingenious chatter, for nearly an hour.
At the end of this time Miss Ambient returned to us, with a very rapid
step, holding her hand to her heart.

"Go for the doctor, Mark, go for the doctor this moment!"

"Is he dying? Has she killed him?" poor Ambient cried, flinging away his
cigarette.

"I don't know what she has done! But she's frightened, and now she wants
the doctor."

"He told me he would be hanged if he came back!" I felt myself obliged
to announce.

"Precisely--therefore Mark himself must go for him, and not a messenger.
You must see him, and tell him it 's to save your child. The trap has
been ordered--it's ready."

"To save him? I 'll save him, please God!" Ambient cried, bounding with
his great strides across the lawn.

As soon as he had gone I felt that I ought to have volunteered in
his place, and I said as much to Miss Ambient; but she checked me by
grasping my arm quickly, while we heard the wheels of the dog-cart
rattle away from the gate. "He's off--he's off--and now I can think! To
get him away--while I think--while I think!"

"While you think of what, Miss Ambient?"

"Of the unspeakable thing that has happened under this roof!"

Her manner was habitually that of such a prophetess of ill that my first
impulse was to believe I must allow here for a great exaggeration.
But in a moment I saw that her emotion was real. "Dolcino _is_ dying
then,--he is dead?"

"It's too late to save him. His mother has let him die! I tell you that
because you are sympathetic, because you have imagination," Miss Ambient
was good enough to add, interrupting my expression of horror. "That's
why you had the idea of making her read Mark's new book!"

"What has that to do with it? I don't understand you; your accusation is
monstrous."

"I see it all; I'm not stupid," Miss Ambient went on, heedless of the
harshness of my tone. "It was the book that finished her; it was that
decided he