nd called a faint flush into her cheeks. Noel noted everything.

Night began to draw on and she could no longer see the baby's face
distinctly. She drew the end of a light shawl over him, saying as she
did so:

"The doctor says this is the best of all--the coming back in the fresh
evening air."

She sat up in her place then, and Noel could see that she kept her hand
upon her baby's pulse.

"Do you ever sing now?" he asked abruptly.

She shook her head.

"No--except little songs to baby."

"I heard while I was in Europe of your making an immense hit in the
amateur opera. Why did you stop?"

"I was forced to. Those people compelled me. I don't know why, but they
looked on me as something apart from them. The women were strange and
unfriendly, and the men--I don't know," she broke off confusedly, "but
it is all hateful to me to think of. I was glad to get away from them.
The night of the opera was the last time. Oh, if my baby will get well,"
she said, bending to touch his thin hair with her lips, "I will never
need anything but him. You believe in prayer--don't you? Will you pray
to God to make him well?"

Noel promised with a willingness that seemed to comfort her. Absorbed in
the child once more, she soon seemed to forget him and silence fell
between them again. It was scarcely broken during the whole return trip.
She seemed to have nothing to say to him. When she spoke to him at all
her thrilling voice dropped to a whisper, and it was always to give some
information about the baby. Once she said with fervent interest, "He is
asleep," and once she told him that his skin felt cool and natural. This
was all. It must be owned that Noel didn't think very lovingly of that
poor atom of humanity as he sat there. It was the baby that had caused
her to be in this false position, which he felt so keenly, and it was
terror for the baby which brought that suffering look to her face. And
yet something of the same feeling was in his own breast as he palpitated
at the thought of this little creature's dying and breaking the heart of
its mother, who plainly loved it with the absorbingness of the first
passion she had ever known.

When they reached the wharf it was quite dark, and the electric lights
and publicity of the place made Noel shrink so from the thought of
exposing the girl, in her suffering, to the gaze of such men and women
as he saw about him, that, without consulting her, he called a carriage
and helped her in