As he lay in the death-like sleep of exhaustion that followed his swoon, the change in Strange was terribly evident. He had shrunk to half his former size, his clothes hung in bags on his limp, thin limbs, his eyes were sunk into deep hollows, his skin was yellow and puckered, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth in a way that told of fever and thirst.

When Brydon, with the help of the panic-stricken servants, had got him to the sofa, knowing his horror of fuss, he told them to send at once for the doctor, and then dismissed them with the utmost speed—and now he stood at the window revolving many things, and wondering, if Strange grew worse, what would happen, would he send for his wife, and would she come?

“My God! I wish I did not know quite so much of him,” he muttered, “I wish he had not, in his ravings, turned himself inside out in that ghastly way. No man should know so much of another fellow as I do of him, it is like eavesdropping.”

Strange moaned, and Brydon crept over and covered his feet with awkward tenderness, then he moved softly through the rooms, looking at the skins and Oriental stuffs, the colours of which slid into him, and comforted his soul to some slight extent.

He was vaguely fingering a piece of drapery, when he struck his foot against the leg of a chair, he looked round breathlessly to see if he had disturbed Strange. No—he still slept, and Brydon continued his purposeless inspection, and, drawn by some strange coloured texture he went towards it, and came face to face with his own bride-picture.

He staggered back two or three steps in a spasm of terror. He had learnt a deal too much of that picture in Strange’s ravings, but the overmastering love for one’s own creation—inherent in God and man—forced him back to it, and as he looked, all the past died out, right back to that day when he was sitting in Waring Church, painting, and wiping great sweat-drops from his face in the ecstasy of knowing that he had done a great work, and one that would live for ever.

A sudden indefinable sound from the terrace brought him to himself.

It was a queer primitive sound; he felt somehow that Strange should not hear it, and went to the window to find out what it was.

Presently it began again, and ended in a chuckle, then he caught sight of a flutter of petticoats around the corner, and could distinguish a murmur of words. Then a distinct squeak startled him, and suddenly a toddling creature appeared on the terrace, and making a grab at a flower fell sprawling on its face, and in a fraction of time was pounced upon by the owner of the white skirts, who cuddled it to her breast, with anxious care, but as it only kicked and crowed she lifted her head from her kissing. And there within ten paces of him was his picture made flesh, but with the sorrow of all ages upon her face.

He swayed, put his hand to his head, then he dropped like a man in a dream into a chair, and murmured,

“Oh, God! has the earth opened—has she fallen from Heaven—has—has——”

He looked again and the flutter of her white dress in the sunlight gave to his dazed, enchanted eyes, the figure of a new Madonna, before whom the whole world must kneel and rise up to call her blessed.

She came on, still murmuring to her baby, she came up to the French window, and put out her hand to open it—then the madness fell from Brydon, and the whole truth came with a rush.

He sprang to his feet, cast one perturbed look at Strange, “Kill him or not, I can’t face it,” he muttered, and fled.

When Gwen got into the room, she sank wearily into a chair, and throwing off her hat let the baby butt her at his will.

When the smile for her baby flickered off her face, the final contained anguish of it was awful, but the child gave her little time to nurse grief. Every moment she had either to rock him, croon little songs to him or tickle him, if she were silent or passive for a moment a lusty butt against her breast or a punch from the pink dimpled fist brought her back to his service.

As she sat—sideways to the window—it was impossible for her to see Strange, but there was nothing to hide her from him.

The soft murmur of croons and baby-sounds at last half awoke him, he lay for some moments and let the vague music creep into his semi-consciousness, then he opened his eyes impatiently and closed them again—it was only one more dream, he thought—he was beset with dreams, tortured, shaken by them.

“Oh, God! those drugs,” he muttered.

Again the murmurs broke on his ears, there was a chuckle, a tender protesting voice, and a sharp little squeal. He shivered and peered out towards the sounds, his eyes were dimmed from his great sickness and could only see “men as trees walking.” Gradually he made out the shapes of a woman and a little child.

“Is it a dream, or death?” he murmured. “Oh! God, spare me! I am haunted by delusions.”

Another little murmur, and a soft low sob, it was the woman this time. Again he opened his eyes and through his dreaming saw the little yellow-headed child laughing around the chair, and inviting the woman to a game of bo-peep.

“Oh! my baby, my own, own baby,” she broke out, stooping to him, “do you know what they say—what they din into my ears, little love, dear baby mine? They say your father is dead, dead, DEAD, dear one. And must you live, grow up, little manikin, without knowing what a man he was?—Sweet, must I sing?—Ah! If you only knew how it hurts!”

The smile flickered back to her face, as she took him on her knee, and she sang a little song he evidently knew well, for he kicked and crowed by way of chorus, then he played with his bare toes for a little—his mother, as she sang, had pulled off his socks to kiss his feet—and as he played she returned to her sad soliloquy.

“You will have to take all from me on trust, little one, and, of course, you will think I exaggerate, my own, when I tell you that your mother had the best man that God yet made or will make, to love her, to love her.—Ah! what love it was!” she repeated gently.

Then her eyes dreamt, and rested for a moment, all the pain fled, and her face shone with radiant triumph and her mouth trembled like a happy child’s.

“Ah! what love!” she said again; but instantly all this was swamped in a mighty wave of pain—she caught her child and kissed him rather wildly, whispering, “Baby, she killed this man who loved her—killed him, baby, because she was unnatural and couldn’t love—she killed her mother too, and oh! baby, when in her loneliness she pleads and prays that God may let her love Him, He hides His face from her, and it is all quite just, baby mine, her mere desert.

“Ah! my own—I can’t sing, I am so tired.”

She put him down gently, and looked before her with sad unseeing eyes.

Strange struggled to break the spell—to speak—to move—but he was impotent—paralyzed. A vague horror—full of sickness and delirium—had him by the throat. He put his hand feebly to his forehead to brush the sweat away.

“This is more cruel than death,” he muttered.

Meanwhile, the baby—being a young person of an exploring tendency, and loose on the premises—played havoc with his opportunities. Having smashed two Venetian glasses and an atom of old SÈvres, he perceived his father on the sofa, and toddled over to investigate him—but so softly that no notice was taken till Strange suddenly found a tiny fist thrust into his mouth, then he started amazedly and touched the child with quaking awe.

Just then Gwen discovered her loss, ran a few steps forward with outstretched hands, and saw the two—Humphrey and his child.

“Humphrey—Humphrey!” she cried faintly, tottering towards them—then she fell at their feet.

To Strange it was still a cruel dream—her falling but part of it. Between the two, the child stood wondering, then he caught sight of a diamond on his father’s finger. He seized on the finger and dragged it to show his mother, but as she took no notice, he smacked her face soundly with his other hand—and simultaneously the two awoke, he from his delirium, she from her swoon.

And for one moment the two of them peered at each other through the fog of a bitter past. Then she sat up slowly, and looked at his face marvelling above her, and at his hand caught in her baby’s, and broke into half incoherent wild explainings. But suddenly the consciousness that words could in no sort of way touch her case, silenced her; she just sat dumbly on the floor, knowing that she had done evil in ignorance but that she had come up through great tribulation into unutterable joy, full of knowledge, and with a soul as white as Naaman’s skin. And so—as best became her—she simply held up her face to be kissed, while the baby clutched hold of one of her fingers and one of his father’s, and in words all his own and untranslatable, but mightier than those of gods or churches, decreed that henceforth and for ever those two should be one flesh. Which, after all, is the especial mission of his kind.