ught back--! Despite the work her swift eye darted
sideways at the Marquis.

When at length another nurse took her place and she was going out of the
room, he moved quickly towards her and spoke.

"May I ask if I may speak to you alone for a few minutes? I have no
right to keep you from your rest. I assure you I won't."

"I'll come," she answered. What she saw in the man's face was that,
because she had brought the boy, he actually clung to her. She had been
clung to many times before, but never by a man who looked quite like
this. There was _more_ than you could see.

He led her to a smaller room near by. He made her sit down, but he did
not sit himself. It was plain that he did not mean to keep her from her
bed--though he was in hard case if ever man was. His very determination
not to impose on her caused her to make up her mind to tell him all she
could, though it wasn't much.

"Captain Muir's mother believes that he is dead," he said. "It is plain
that no excitement must approach him--even another person's emotion. He
was her idol. She is in London. _Must_ I send for her--or would it be
safe to wait?"

"There have been minutes to-day when if I'd known he had a mother I
should have said she must be sent for," was her answer. "To-night I
believe--yes, I _do_--that it would be better to wait and watch. Of
course the doctors must really decide."

"Thank you. I will speak to them. But I confess I wanted to ask _you_."
How he did cling to her!

"Thank you," he said again. "I will not keep you."

He opened the door and waited for her to pass--as if she had been a
marchioness herself, she thought. In spite of his desperate eyes he
didn't forget a single thing. He so moved her that she actually turned
back.

"You don't know anything yet-- Some one you're fond of coming back from
the grave must make you half mad to know how it happened," she said. "I
don't know much myself, but I'll tell you all I was able to find out. He
was light headed when I found him trying to get on the boat. When I
spoke to him he just caught my hand and begged me to stay with him. He
wanted to get to you. He'd been wandering about, starved and hiding. If
he'd been himself he could have got help earlier. But he'd been ill
treated and had seen things that made him lose his balance. He couldn't
tell a clear story. He was too weak to talk clearly. But I asked
questions now and then and listened to every word he said when he
rambled because of