Raymond thanked the doctor, but was too much employed in enveloping his passengers to make further reply.

It was quite dark, and the fog had turned to misty rain, soft and still, but all pervading, and Rosamond found it impossible to hold up an umbrella as well as to guard the baby, who was the only passenger not soaked and dripping by the time they were among the lighted windows of the village.

“Oh, Raymond!  Raymond!” she then said, in a husky dreamy voice, “how good and kind you have been.  I know there was something that would make you very, very glad!”

“Is there?” he said.  “I have not met with anything to make me glad for a long time past!”

“And I don’t seem able to recollect what it was, or even if I ought to tell,” said Rosamond, in the same faint, bewildered voice, which made Raymond very glad they were at the gate, where stood Julius.

But before Rosamond would descend into her husband’s arms, she opened all her child’s mufflings, saying, “Kiss her, kiss her, Raymond—­how she shall love you!” And when he had obeyed, and Rosamond had handed the little one down to her father, she pressed her own wet cheek against his dripping beard and moustache, and exclaimed, “I’ll never forget your goodness.  Have you got her safe, Julius?  I’ll never, never go anywhere again!”

CHAPTER XXV The Pebbles

O no, no, no; ’tis true.  Here, take this too;
It is a basilisk unto mine eye,
Kills me to look on’t.  Let there be no honour,
Where there is beauty; truth, where semblance; love,
Where there’s another man.—­Cymbeline

When Julius, according to custom, opened his study shutters, at half-past six, to a bright sunrise, his eldest brother stood before the window.  “Well, how are they?” he said.

“All right, thank you; the child woke, had some food, and slept well and naturally after it; and Rose has been quite comfortable and at rest since midnight.  You saved us from a great deal, Raymond.”

“Ah!” with a sound of deep relief; “may Julia only turn out as sweet a piece of womanhood as her mother.  Julius, I never understood half what that dear wife of yours was till yesterday.”

“I was forced to cut our gratitude very short,” said Julius, laying his hand on his brother’s shoulder.  “You know I’ve always taken your kindness as a matter of course.”

“I should think so,” said Raymond, the more moved of the two.  “I tell you, Julius, that Rosamond was to me the only redeeming element in the day.  I wanted to know whether you could walk with me to ask after that poor girl; I hear she came home one with her grandmother.”

“Gladly,” said Julius.  “I ought to have gone last night; but what with Rose, and the baby, and Terry, I am afraid I forgot everything.”  He disappeared, and presently issued from the front door in his broad hat, while Raymond inquired for Terry.