Jane did not feel the least shade of regret or fear when she took Maud home.

There was no one there, of course, for Jim was at work still and Harry and the baby were at the Nursery. Jane gave Maud some bread and jam and a mug of milk and sat down to think over the situation.

Harry had made his appearance in the house and street without occasioning the least remark or surprise. They made no apologies for him, no explanations beyond the one that he was Jim's nephew.

This was her niece. That was all the difference. With no mystery and no explanations she felt perfectly secure. She would act exactly as she had done when Harry came. There was only one thing necessary for protection. The colour of the child's hair should be brown and her white dress and sun hat should be pink!

"What's your name, child?" she said abruptly.

Maud looked up startled.

"I'm Maudie," she said piteously, her blue eyes filling with tears, "I don't like being here. I want to go home to my mother."

She struggled out of her chair, and prepared to depart, but Jane lifted her back rather roughly and spoke sharply.

"Look here," she said, "you've got to be a good girl and do what Aunt Jane tells you, and if you are a good girl and don't cry, you shall go home to-morrow; but if you cry, you shan't!"

She bustled over to a cupboard and began rummaging, bringing out presently a ball of pink Dolly dye and a little bottle of deep-red crystals, while poor little Maud choked back her tears as best she could. Her short experience of life had brought prompt fulfilment of promises, and she watched Jane quite interestedly, as she threw a few crystals into a basin, poured boiling water on them, and produced a lovely crimson liquid.

Jane then tied a towel round the child's neck.

"I'm going to make you some lovely curls," she announced, unconsciously using one of Denys's constant formulas, and in a moment Maud's golden head was sopped all over with the crimson liquid, and after it was dried on the towel, she emerged with fluffy brown curls and streaks of brown upon her face. That defect was soon remedied, and the brown stain travelled all over her face and neck till the clear white skin had disappeared, and she looked like all the other little sun-browned children who ran about in the street below.

Jane surveyed her handiwork with satisfaction; then she rapidly undressed her new charge, put her into one of Harry's nightdresses, tucked her up into Harry's bed, and turned her attention to the frock and hat, and when they were hanging on the line, pink and damp, she cleared up the room and wished Jim would make haste and come home. She wanted to get her explanations to him over before she fetched Harry and the baby.

But no Jim came, and at last she went downstairs and knocked at a neighbour's door.

"I say," she said, "I wish you'd fetch my baby and the brat from the Nursery for me. My husband's not in yet, and I've brought my sister's child home along of me for a few days, and he don't know a word about it. If he was to come in while I was out, he might be putting the child outside in the street."

"I'll go," said the woman carelessly. "My word, Jane Adams, but I thought you hated children!"

"So I do!" answered Jane fiercely, "but he would have his sister's, now it's my turn for my sister's!"

As she turned up the stairs her own words came back to her with a sudden qualm. Her sister's child! What about Tom?

He would know that this was not his sister's child—he might even know whose child it was, for he must probably have seen it with Pattie!

But even as the disquieting thought came, a reassuring one followed. Tom was gone away for a month on a special job for his master, and long before that time had elapsed, Pattie would be dismissed and the child could be returned.

Jim did not come home till very late, and when he did, he was more than half intoxicated, and he accepted Jane's story without demur, indeed he scarcely listened to what she said; and as the little girl was still asleep when he went to work in the morning, he really had no idea that there was any addition to his family circle.

Harry was enchanted with a playmate so pretty, so gentle, so near his own age. He wanted to take her to walk in the street to show her off, but Jane promptly boxed his ears and forbade any such thing, on pain of terrific wrath, so Harry contented himself with offering her every toy he possessed, and Maud accepted his attentions like a little queen, and was really quite happy, except when she thought of her mother or Denys. But always there was the same answer to her pleadings to go home.

"To-morrow—to-morrow—if you don't cry."

So the days passed on. Each day Jim drank more and more heavily as he ceased to resist the temptation, and it took stronger hold upon him, and each day Jane grew a little more restless and anxious as she waited for news of Pattie's downfall. She had counted on going over to Old Keston, ostensibly to see her sister and the new baby, but really to pick up any gossip she could about Pattie; but though night after night she made up her mind to go the next day, yet in the morning her heart failed her. The chance of recognition was possible, and to take Maud through the streets to the Nursery, in the glare of the morning sunshine, seemed to be courting discovery. Nor did she dare to leave the child at home alone, because of the neighbours. She would have left Harry alone with the utmost indifference, and locked him in, and he might have been frightened and screamed and cried all day, for all she would have cared, and the neighbours could have made any remarks they liked; but this was different.

She was certainly beginning to be nervous, and she took more beer than she had ever taken before, because she felt so much more cheerful for a little while, and when the inevitable depression it caused, returned, why then she took some more!

As her neighbour had remarked, she hated children, and she became so unutterably wearied of the care of these three all day and every day, that she began to wish she had never troubled about paying Pattie out, or chosen some way which had not entailed the plague of three children upon herself.

Still, she had triumphed; she had had her vengeance. The thought was very sweet, and the bother to herself would soon be over now. Indeed, it must be, or Tom would be coming back.

One Saturday had already passed, since Maud came, and on the second Saturday three things happened. News of Pattie came to her. Wrapped round a haddock which she had purchased for dinner, was a crumpled piece of newspaper. The name upon it, "Old Keston Gazette," caught her eye instantly. She turned it over and glanced down its columns, and her eyes rested on one, and a look and a smile of triumph flashed into her face.

But as she read, her look changed, a deep and angry flush mounted to her forehead and spread to her neck. In a sudden transport of rage, she crumpled up the paper into a ball, cast it upon the floor and trampled on it, and then stooping, she picked it up and thrust it into the fire.

She had failed—she had been deceived—tricked—foiled. All her efforts had been in vain! Pattie had escaped from her toils scot-free. Pattie had never gone to the station at all. She had stolen the child from one of its own sisters! She had risked so much for that! She could have shrieked in her impotent anger.

Turning, she met the wondering gaze of the two children, who had stopped in their play to watch her. She gave them both a smart box on the ears, and then, further enraged when they both began to cry, she seized them roughly and thrust them into the bedroom. She would gladly have smacked her own baby, only that he happened to be asleep.

The second happening was a postcard in the afternoon, from the maid who lived where she used to wash in Old Keston. Her mistress was away, she said; the new washerwoman had not put in an appearance and if Mrs. Adams was not engaged on Monday, would she come and oblige?

Mrs. Adams was not engaged. She thought things over and she decided to go. Not by her usual trains, however. Something must be devised about ridding herself of Maud. She was sick of seeing after the child and she found herself listening to every heavy footstep on the stairs. She would go over late on Monday morning, and returning by a later train, could observe the movements of the St. Olave's household when the dusk fell. She must do something or Tom would be back.

The third happening came late at night.

As might have been expected, Jim came home at last with very little money in his pocket.

He threw over to Jane her usual housekeeping money and growled out that he had not got any extra for Harry this week. She must make do without it. A child like that couldn't cost much, anyhow!

That put the finishing touch to Jane's day. She stormed and raved, she called her husband names, she threatened all sorts of things, but as Jim observed, hard words would not draw blood out of a stone, and he sat there stolidly smoking and listening to the torrent of words, till suddenly his patience gave way all at once, and he declared that if he heard another word, he would take the money back and do the housekeeping himself.

That would have suited Jane very ill, and it sobered her somewhat, and when Jim added that if they were all going short of food next week, she had better send that kid of her sister's home, she became quite silent. It occurred to her that it might be well not to push Jim too hard till the child was safely gone. After that she would have a free hand.

She maintained a sulky silence all Sunday, but Jim took no notice of her. He went out directly after breakfast, taking Harry with him, and they did not return till late at night.

On Monday morning she announced that she was going to work, and demanded the money for the Nursery for Harry, which Jim had always paid cheerfully, but now he only retorted that he had no more money, and went angrily out, apparently heedless of her reply that if he did not pay, Harry could stop at home. For a full minute Jim stood outside on the landing, his hand in his pocket, irresolute. He was quite unaware that the Nursery charge was fivepence for one child, eightpence for two, and tenpence for three, and that Jane had pocketed any benefit which arose from sending more than one. He had sixpence to last him through Monday, but if he left fivepence of that for the Nursery, he would have but one penny for beer!

Yesterday his heart had turned away from his temptation to the fair, innocent little chap that he meant to be a father to, and he had taken him out all day, and had never touched one drop of intoxicating beverage, contenting himself, and very happily too, with iced lemonade and soda water and coffee.

But this morning was different. The cruel trick of his mates rose up in his mind and held him back from trying again. Then he had no coffee ready for dinner, even if he meant to begin again, and it would not hurt the boy to be left at home alone. Still he hesitated, conscious that he was weighing two loves—the child's welfare; his own desire.

And his own desire conquered.

He went quietly downstairs and out to his work, and Jane dressed the baby and Maud, and took them down to her obliging neighbour.

"Take these two down to the Nursery for me," she said, "I've to go back to my old work to-day."

Poor little Harry! He stood forlornly in the middle of the empty room, listening to the sound of the key turning in the lock, listening to the sound of his aunt's retreating footsteps.

Then he thought of the happy Nursery where Maud and Baby had gone; he thought of his place at the head of the long dinner-table that somebody else would have this Monday, and he sat down in a heap on the floor and cried.

Presently he got up and looked about for something to do. His dinner stood on the table, and he thought he might as well eat it now, and when that was disposed of, he strolled into the bedroom, and there he spied the corner of the box that held his best frock, sticking out from under the bed.

Now was his chance! He would have his own again, his bright penny and his bestest pocket-handkerchief with lace upon it.

But the box stuck fast.

Nothing daunted, Harry wrestled with it. He pushed and pulled, under the bed and behind the bed, this way and that, till suddenly, as he pulled, the obstruction which held it gave way, the box came out with a run, and Harry toppled over backwards with a crash, and an awful sound of breaking china, and a rushing of cold water.

For a moment Harry lay there stunned, the broken toilet jug lying in shivers around him, the water soaking into him from head to foot; then, as he came to himself, his startled screams filled the room and he struggled up and sat looking round.

He was more frightened than hurt, but the sight of that broken jug terrified him more than the fall and the wetting. Wouldn't Aunt Jane whip him when she knew!

There was great tenacity in Harry's character. He gathered himself up at last, and opened the box and found his frock and its pocket and its precious contents. He looked at the frock a long time lovingly, then he replaced it, pushed back the box, set the bed straight and gave an involuntary shiver.

He was soaked from head to foot, and though it was summer weather, he felt very, very cold.

He sat down by the empty fireplace and shivered again, and by-and-by he fell fast asleep and dreamed strange dreams, but always he was very, very cold.