Miss Shropshire took the precaution to ask Clough to come to the cottage a day or two before the next steamer was due, and to be prepared to remain. The steamer arrived, and with it nothing of interest to Nina Randolph.

She was very ill. Even Clough, who was inimitable in a sick room, looked grey and anxious. But it passed; and the time came when the housekeeper, who had had many babies in her time, placed a little girl in Nina’s arms.

Nina, who had been lying with closed eyes, exhausted and wretched, turned her face toward the unfamiliar weight, and looked wonderingly into the face of the child. For a moment she hardly realised its significance, vivid as had been her imaginings. The baby’s colour was fair and agreeable, and its large blue eyes moved slowly about with an expression of sober inquiry.

Nina glanced hastily outward. She was alone for the moment. Miss Shropshire had gone to her well-earned rest, and Dr. Clough was in the dining-room, attended by Mrs. Atkins. Nina drew the baby closer, and kissed it. For the moment she held Dudley Thorpe in her arms,—for she could not grasp their separateness,—and peace returned. Thorpe was ill, of course; but he was hardy and young, and would recover. The rapture of young motherhood possessed her. She kissed the baby many times, softly, fearing that it might break, then drew back and gazed at it with rapt adoration. Once she met its wise solemn eyes, and the first soul of Dudley Thorpe looked from their depths. She moved it with trembling care, and laid its head on her breast.

She gave no thought to the time when the world must know; the world no longer existed for her. Dudley Thorpe was her husband, and his child was in her arms,—an actual tangible beautiful certainty; all the rest that went to make up life was nebulÆ.

It was a very good baby, and gave little trouble; consequently Nina was permitted to hold it most of the time. She felt no desire to rise from the bed, to take an active part in life again. She would have liked to remain there until Thorpe came and sat beside her. She spoke little, excepting to the child, and perhaps those hours, despite the great want, were the happiest of her life.

“What are some women made of?” demanded Miss Shropshire of Dr. Clough. “What is she going to do with that baby? That’s what I want to know. It may be months before Dudley Thorpe gets here, and it certainly won’t be long before Mr. Randolph comes up again. I don’t believe she has given a thought to the consequences—and I have always thought her an unusually bright and level-headed woman.”

“I see nothing to do but let matters take their course.” He hesitated a moment, then gave Miss Shropshire a swift tentative glance, shifting his eyes hastily. “Would you—you believe in my disinterestedness, do you not, Miss Molly?”

“I do, indeed. You have been a real friend. I’m sure I don’t know what I should have done without you.”

“Then—if Mr. Thorpe does not return, when she has become convinced that he does not mean to return, will you help me to make her understand that I am only too willing to marry her and adopt her child?”

Miss Shropshire stared, then shook her head. “You don’t know Nina. It would be years before she got over her infatuation for Dudley Thorpe, if ever; and by that time everybody would know. Besides, I don’t share your distrust of Thorpe. He is selfish, and is probably travelling beyond the reach of mails; but he is the soul of honour: no one could doubt that.”

“He may be dead.”

“We should have heard by this time; and it would not help you if he were. Most likely it would kill her.”

“We don’t die so easily.”

“The thing to consider now is that baby. It’s a dear little thing, and looks less like putty than most babies; I can actually see a resemblance to Thorpe. But, all the same, its presence is decidedly embarrassing.”

The baby solved the problem. It died when it was ten days old. Even Miss Shropshire, who scorned the emotions, shuddered and burst into tears at the awful agony in Nina’s eyes. Nina did not cry, nor did she speak. When the child was dressed for its coffin, the housekeeper brought it to the bedside. Nina raised herself on her elbow, and gave it a long devouring glance. It looked like marble rather than wax, and its likeness to Dudley Thorpe was startling. The contours of infancy had disappeared in its brief severe illness, and the strong bold outlines of the man who had called it into being were reproduced in little. The dark hair fell over its forehead in the same way, the mouth had the same arch.

Miss Shropshire entered the room, and Nina spoke for the first time since the baby had given its sharp cry of warning.

“Take it up into the forest, and bury it between the two pines where my hammock was.” And then she turned her back and stared at the wall.

Shortly after, Mr. Randolph was informed that Nina had had a brief but severe attack of rheumatic fever, and he paid her a hurried visit. He wondered at the change in her, but did not suspect the truth.

“She is pining for Thorpe, I suppose,” he said to Miss Shropshire. “I cannot understand his silence; and now God knows when we’ll hear from him, unless he managed to get North before April 19th. Something has happened, I am afraid. Poor child, she was not born under a lucky star! Is she all right otherwise?”

“Yes, it looks as if she were cured. But when she goes to San Francisco, she had better stay with me for a time. I don’t think her mother’s society would be the best thing for her while she is so despondent.”

“By all means. And that detestable Clough?”

“He is really a first-rate doctor, and has been devotion itself.”

“Very well: I shall send him a handsome cheque. But if he has any matrimonial designs, let him look out. Don’t imagine I am blind. A man does not neglect a fresh practice for cousinly affection. I cannot suppose for a moment that she would tolerate him, but when a woman is listless and despondent, and thinks that all her prospects of happiness are over, there’s no telling what she will do; particularly if the besieger has the tenacity of a bull dog. I’d rather see her in her coffin than married to Richard Clough.”

Miss Shropshire was very anxious to return to San Francisco. She loved Nina Randolph; but she had immured herself in the cause of friendship long enough, and thought that her afflicted friend would be quite as well off where distractions were more abundant. When she suggested return, Nina acquiesced indifferently, and Mrs. Atkins packed the trunks with a hearty good-will. Dr. Clough brought a hack, at great expense, from Napa, and packed her into it as if she were a baby. As it drove off, she looked through the window up to the forest where her baby lay. She had not been strong enough to climb to the grave. She knew that she should never see it.