“Trifles!  Who is dead?  You did not tell me.”

“Poor Judd’s baby, of course.  We have spoken of it often enough, I am sure.”

“Oh yes, of course.  Poor Tom Judd!” exclaimed Mrs. Ambrose with genuine sympathy.  “It seems to me you are always burying his babies, Augustin!  It is very sad.”

“Not always, my dear.  Frequently,” said the vicar correcting her.  “It is very sad, as you say.  Very sad.  You took so much trouble to help them this time, too.”

“Trouble!” Mrs. Ambrose cast up her eyes.  “You don’t know how much trouble.  But I am quite sure it was the fault of that brazen-faced doctor.  I cannot bear the sight of him!  That comes of answering advertisements in the newspapers.”

The present doctor had bought the practice abandoned by Mrs. Ambrose’s son-in-law.  He had paid well for it, but his religious principles had not formed a part of the bargain.

“It is of no use to cry over spilt milk, my dear.”

“I do not mean to.  No, I never do.  But it is very unpleasant to have such people about.  I really hope Tom Judd will not lose his next baby.  When is John coming?”

“To-morrow.  My dear, if I forget it this morning, will you remember to speak to Reynolds about the calf?”

“Certainly, Augustin,” said his wife.  Therewith the good vicar left her and went to bury Tom Judd’s baby, divided in his mind between rejoicing over his favourite pupil’s success and lamenting, as he sincerely did, the misfortunes which befell his parishioners.  When he left the churchyard an hour later he was met by Martha, who came from the cottage with a message begging that the vicar would come to Mrs. Goddard as soon as possible.  Martha believed her mistress was ill, she wanted to see Mr. Ambrose at once.  Without returning to the vicarage he turned to the left towards the cottage.

Mrs. Goddard had slept that night, being exhausted and almost broken down with fatigue.  But she woke only to a sense of the utmost pain and distress, realising that to-day’s anxiety was harder to bear than yesterday’s, and that to-morrow might bring forth even worse disasters than those which had gone before.  Her position was one of extreme doubt and peril.  To tell any one that her husband was in the neighbourhood seemed to be equivalent to rooting out the very last remnant of consideration for him which remained in her heart, the very last trace of what had once been the chief joy and delight of her life.  She hesitated long.  There is perhaps nothing in human nature more enduring than the love of man and wife; or perhaps one should rather say than the love of a woman for her husband.  There appear to be some men capable of being so completely estranged from their wives that there positively does not remain in them even the faintest recollection of what they have once felt, nor the possibility of feeling the least pity for what the women they once loved so well may suffer.  There is no woman, I