n it as a
sort of temporary visit--until I came back--until I should be able to
turn round a bit. But"--with another sigh--"he's there yet."

Miss Urquhart nodded, with an air of utter wisdom.

"Of course you went to see the child?"

"Three times--whenever I was in port. And found him always the same--so
beautifully cared for that, upon my soul, I never saw a baby in my life
so sweet and clean and wholesome-looking; jolly as a little sandboy all
the time, too."

"That means that he had a perfect constitution--inherited from you
evidently--and that you were fortunate in the nurse."

"Very fortunate. But it appeared that beyond--beyond running the
commissariat department, so to speak, she did next to nothing for him.
Miss--the lady I spoke of--did everything. Made herself a perfect slave
to him."

"Bought his clothes?"

"Oh," groaned the wretched man, "I suppose so. What did I know about a
baby's clothes? And she wouldn't answer my questions--said he was all
right, and didn't want for anything, as I could see with my own eyes. I
tried making presents--used to bring her curios and things--found out
her birthday, and sent her a jewel--took every chance I could see to
work off the obligation. But it was no use. She gave ME a birthday
present after I'd given her one."

"Well, if moths will go into spiders' webs," laughed his companion,
"they must take the consequences."

"Sometimes they get helped out," he replied. "Some beneficent, godlike
being puts out an omnipotent finger--"

He looked at her, and she looked at him. At this moment they seemed to
have known one another intimately for years. The moon again.

"Tell me everything," she said, "and I'll help you out."

So then he told her that he had not "this time" visited his son. He
might have added that he had come to Five Creeks partly to avoid being
visited by him. Cowardly and weak he frankly confessed himself. "But
the thing was too confoundedly awkward--too embarrassing altogether."

"But she writes--she writes continually. Tells me what he weighs, and
when he's got a fresh tooth, and how he crawls about the carpet and
into her bed of a morning, and imitates the cat mewing, and drinks I
don't know how many pints of new milk a day, and all that sort of
thing. I believe the rascal has the appetite of a young tiger--and yet
I can't pay for what he eats! The nurse was long ago dispensed with, so
that I've not even her board to send a cheque for, that they m