have raged, have burst into a passion. Now she could only
minister to him with an impassive calm, while, in her secret heart, she
was piously commending him to the attention of the Universal Mind for
discipline. Unhappily for Katharine, however, the Universal Mind
appeared to be engaged in some other direction, and Brenton, for the
present, was left to go scot free.

This had been the state of the case, ever since the early spring, and
Katharine felt the private and personal fount of sanctity within her to
be running dry. She was just making up her mind to break away at any
cost, when a new complication arose in the person of the baby. Not that
Katharine's devotion to her child would have led her to any especial
sacrifice, however. Indeed, there was no need for that. The nurse had
proved herself an efficient substitute in any normal crisis; and any
abnormal one, Katharine believed, could be controlled as well by absent
treatment as by present. Unhappily, Katharine had reckoned without
taking into account either Brenton's wilful allegiance to the
old-fashioned notions of disease, or the nurse's abject allegiance to
the father of her puny charge.

For, as the time ran on, no one could deny that the child was puny,
that his birthright of health was dwindling fast. And, while it
dwindled, the heat came on, and then the stifling dog days. It was a
season when the lustiest of children wilted with the damp, depressing
heat; and the Brenton baby, never lusty, wilted with them. Katharine
treated him with conscientious regularity; but dog days and consequent
dysentery proved too strenuous a claim for her to fight alone, and more
and more eagerly she longed for the succour of the nearest local
representative of the Mother Church.

Nevertheless, the more she longed, the more she shrank from carrying
into effect her longing. Three days before this time, Brenton had come
in upon her, sitting beside the weazen child, her eyes on space, her
lips moving in silent self-communion. Across the room, the nurse was
sobbing into her handkerchief. Now and then, between her sobs, she
lifted up her irate eyes to glare upon the placid face beside the
little crib.

Brenton had asked a question. Before Katharine could answer, the nurse
had cut in and given him a few facts: hours and amounts and consequent
symptoms which she deemed disturbing. And then, in a voice which made a
curious contrast to the agitation of the nurse, Katharine had urged