it isn't polite to call me
one to my face," he said with a crooked, grudging smile.

"Oh, how am I to thank you!" tears suffused her eyes as she seized his
hand and carried it impulsively to her lips. "You have no idea of the
relief you have brought me!"

Dalton had; and by the answering gleam in his eye, showed he was
rewarded for the whim which had prompted him to be the bearer of the
good tidings. It amused him to play with this pretty child-wife, and
sound the depths of her nature--if there were any!

"What is your age?" he asked abruptly, with a doctor's licence to
question a patient as he chose.

"I was nineteen in summer."

"You have no business with a baby when you are one yourself! Now for
your tea," and he held the cup while she leant on her elbow to drink its
contents, a shower of honey-gold hair falling about her face.

"Is your head very bad?" he asked when she had finished.

"How did you know that it ached?" she questioned.

"I have ways of finding out. Your pulse and your flush, for example."

"Then I am ill?" she asked in alarm. If she were to be ill, who would
take care of the child?

"A little ill."

"Fever?"

"Feverish."

"But I may get up, in spite of it?"

"Certainly not. Nor would you be of any use if you did."

"But I must take care of Baby!"

"I am doing that, already."

"You are going to take care of me, too?"

"Yes, if you are good and do all I tell you."

"I'll be so good, for I want to get well. How long will it last?"

"The fever? Who can say? However, I dare say it will be only a trifling
thing."

"Where is my husband?" she asked, wondering if Ray knew, and why he had
not rushed to see her. She was so accustomed to being fussed over, that
she missed the excitement. No doubt he was nursing injured feelings
since her ill-treatment of him last night....

"Listen, and you will hear the voices of the multitude before the Court.
Mr. Meredith is trying cases and sentencing malefactors to various
degrees of punishment," said the doctor.

"Won't you call him?"

"Are you sure he won't charge me with Contempt of Court?" he teased.

"If I am going to be ill, I must have him come at once. But first
promise me something," she cried, clinging to his hand with feverish
excitement; "I cannot bear to stay in camp after yesterday's experience.
Tell him that I must go back to Muktiarbad so as to have Baby near you.
He might be ill again, and what should I do then!"

"He might