It seemed to Jane that the world was a great void, filled with the strangled breathing of the baby. Since the first swift descent of danger she had worked mechanically, under the doctor's orders, without sleep, with no attention to the food which they forced her to swallow. Her muscles obeyed the orders of her brain, but her subconscious mind spilled over into her consciousness every minute of the time, and a dreary monologue repeated itself interminably:

"Why did I bring him here? Why did I risk his life this way? For my own selfish purposes, and now God will punish me. He will take him away. I shall have killed him—little Jerry." Over and over it ran, the same words, the same aching accusation. With a reversion to the old, avenging God of her childhood, she foresaw quick doom for sin.

Jerry Jr. had never been ill before and Jane was unprepared for the suddenness of the seizure. A strange doctor had to be summoned, Anna's terror quieted, a trained nurse sent for. Things had to be done quickly for the need was immediate. The baby had evidently taken cold—it had gone into membranous croup before they realized that he was really ill.

Miss Garnett and the doctor were kindness itself, but it seemed to Jane that she was as alone with Nemesis, as if she were lost in the desert. The first day, and part of the second, the doctor insisted there was no need of alarm, but the afternoon of the second day the breathing grew more and more difficult. Then Jane wired for Jerry.

As she waited for him, she tried to think how he would feel toward her, if his son were sacrificed. She thought of the night before they came away—how he had bathed him and said his good-bye to him. He was just beginning to take an interest in him, to be proud of him. And now! She fought down the desire to break into hysterical weeping. She must spare him that, at least.

When, finally, he came into the room, her tragic face drew him to her swiftly. He took her cold hands for a second, with a low word of greeting. Then he went to the baby's bed and bent over him.

"Poor little chap!" he exclaimed, as he looked at the fevered, panting atom of humanity. He asked the nurse quick questions. Jane sat still as a graven image.

"I asked Doctor Grant to come on the next train, Jane. I thought we'd better have him, because he knows Jerry's constitution best."

"Oh, Jerry!" she said, out of her agony.

He went to her and laid his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't be discouraged, Jane; we'll pull him through, he's strong."

"No. I've killed him, Jerry."

"Nonsense! He ran the same chance in New York. Now tell me about it from the beginning."

His matter-of-fact tone steadied her. She told him the details from the first and he listened intently, nodding as she talked in an undertone not to disturb the child. It was such a relief to share the present responsibility with Jerry, no matter how she reserved the initial responsibility for herself. The thought of Doctor Grant's coming brought hope. He had taken care of Jerry Jr. since his coming; he knew him thoroughly—understood. If anybody could do it, he could thwart God.

Jerry Jr. began to cry. The pitiful wail of sick babyhood. It was agonizing to hear him. Jerry went to him and spoke to him. The baby turned bright eyes upon him, and a smile that was a spasm of pain followed.

"Let me take him up. I know I can help him get his breath," he said to the nurse.

"No, I think you'd better not move him," she said.

"Well, I can't stand here and see him suffer like that," said Jerry. Deftly and with infinite tenderness he lifted his small son, blankets and all, holding his head up with one hand. He walked slowly up and down the room with him, talking to him.

"Look here, old man, this is no kind of welcome to give your daddy! Can't you brace up a bit and manage a smile? Your old pal, Doctor Grant, is coming along presently and he'll give you a pill that will make it all right."

The baby was quiet, watching him, but still that awful gasping for breath went on.

"Ride-a-cock-horse to Banbury Cross," big Jerry began softly. It seemed to Jane that she was smothering. She went out on the balcony outside the room, where that mocking song came faintly, punctuated with Baby's cries for help.

"God, if you'll let him live till Doctor Grant comes, I'll expiate!" she said over and over.

Presently she heard the distant train, that was to bring her messenger of relief, whistle in the station. After what seemed aeons of time a cab rattled to the house. A quick, alert step came up the steps. She made a supreme effort at self-control and went back into the room to meet him.

One look at Jerry and the boy—a nod to Jane—then his hat and coat were off and he had small Jerry in his hands.

"You want me to take charge here?" he asked.

"Yes, yes," Jane murmured.

"Who is the doctor?" he asked the nurse.

She told him.

"Send for him, please."

She went out to obey.

"Now, Mrs. Paxton, details, please," he said, making tests as he listened.

Jane told him quietly. The nurse returned saying the doctor would come at once. He asked her many questions, and before she had finished answering, the other doctor had arrived. A consultation followed.

"We may have to resort to a tube, but in the meantime, we'll try something else," Doctor Grant explained to Jane and Jerry. "Suppose you go out on the balcony for a little; we'll call you if there is any change. So many of us are disturbing to him, I think."

"All right," said Jerry, laying his hand on Jane's arm.

"Is there any hope, Doctor Grant?" Jane asked.

"He's a sick baby, but I've had them worse off than that. You go out there and make up your mind that Baby is going to get well," he answered.

Jerry led her out into the semi-darkness of the upper veranda.

"I can't sit still, Jerry; let's walk."

"All right."

His hand grasped her forearm, slipped through, until it found her hand. She clung to him with a force that hurt. In silence they walked up and down, up and down. When they passed the windows and the light struck across Jane's face, Jerry thought he had never seen such anguish in a human countenance. He could not bear to look, it was as if he were gazing into something not intended for eyes to see—something primal, savage, terrible which only God could endure. He knew she was on the rack, yet he could not comfort her. He knew that his own grief would be acute if his son was taken away, but he foresaw it would be nothing to the agony of this mother. "Oh, Mary pity, women——" came to his mind, with an overwhelming realization of the pathos of life. This groping of human creatures toward—what? All bound together in strange, even accidental, relationship; held in bondage by affections, instincts, passions; fighting free—going on—but where? Bobs's terrible sculpture of "Woman" stood out before him, and he understood. He looked into the hearts and souls of Bobs, of Jane, even of Althea and himself, in this sacrament of emotion he was drinking.

Jane's consciousness was like the shifting, fever-haunted dreams of a drug fiend. She was numb, like a lump of stone. She saw things tugging at her—devils. They burned her with torches, but she did not feel anything but this ache of loss. A figure hovered, gray, indistinguishable; she thought it was remorse, or perhaps death, waiting. Suddenly it looked at her and she saw it was Christ, gazing at her with accusing eyes, yet full of sorrow. She groaned, and tried to pray, but her tongue was dead. Visions that had come to her, in sleep, before the baby's birth, came again, to mock her. She knew herself condemned to walk for years this lonely road she was traversing. Always at the end, she must turn and go back looking for little Jerry who was lost. She could hear him crying—she knew he needed her—but she could not get to him. Something seemed to walk beside her—she could not remember what it was—it clung to her and she to it. Out of the horror she turned her head to the light which struck across her husband's face.

"Oh, Jerry!" she sobbed.

"Steady, Jane, steady. They have to hurt him a little, dear."

"Jerry, talk to me. I'm afraid of my thoughts," she whispered to him.

He saw she was nearly beside herself, so he forced himself to tell her all the trivial happenings since her departure. Stories about Billy Biggs, the conversation at one of the Brendons' dinners, the account of the Bryce child's latest escapade. He heard his voice going on and on, he saw Jane's frantic effort to listen to him, yet he knew that his real self was indoors with those low-voiced men, who were trying to hold the fine, silken thread of life in their sensitive fingers.

Presently Doctor Grant stepped to the door and spoke to them. Jerry's hand led Jane toward him. They were like very little children stumbling to him for help. He seemed so steady and sure.

"We're going to put in the tube. Don't be alarmed. It isn't too painful, but I wanted you to know."

He turned back into the room. Jerry put his arms about Jane, but to his touch she felt like stone. She did not cling to him—she leaned on him, stiff and cold. It seemed ages that they stood so, punctuated by one scream of pain from Baby, then silence! Jane shuddered and Jerry's arms tightened. The night and the busy village below were blotted out. They two stood together in a chaos of pain.

Doctor Grant's touch dragged Jerry back.

"Bring her in now and let her look at him," he said.

"Is he dead?" Jerry whispered.

"No—he is asleep—it's all right."

Jerry watched the perspiration run down Doctor Grant's face unnoticed by him.

Then he gently loosed Jane, turned her, and led her in to the bedside.

Little Jerry, still flushed, but at peace, lay breathing gently. The nurse and the doctor smiled at them.

"Wonderful operation of Doctor Grant's. Never saw it better done," said his colleague.

Jerry nodded, but Jane paid no attention to any of them. She laid her hand on the Bald One's damp forehead, she lifted his hands one after the other, adjusted the covers, mechanically. Then she lifted an age-old face to them all.

"God heard me," she said, and slipped into unconsciousness.