Mrs. Leighton let Lewis go, pushed Natalie gently from her lap, and gathered her first-born in her arms.

“Run to mammy, children,” she said.

Holding the sleeping Shenton close to her, she turned a troubled face toward the afterglow.  The golden sea was gone.  There was a last glimmer of amber in the heavens, but it faded suddenly, as though somewhere beyond the edge of the world some one had put out the light.  Night had fallen.

Mrs. Leighton carried her boy into the house.  She stopped at her husband’s study door.

“Orme, are you there?” she called.  “Please come.”

There was the sound of a chair scraping back.  The door was flung open.  Leighton looked from Ann’s face to her burden, and his own face paled.

“Again?” he asked.

“O, Orme,” cried Ann, “I’m frightened.  What is it, Orme?  Dr. MacDonald must come.  Send for him.  We must know!”

The Reverend Orme took the boy from her arms and carried him into a spare bedroom.  He laid him down.  Shenton’s head fell limply to one side upon the pillow.  The pillow was white, but not whiter than the boy’s face.

MacDonald’s gruff voice was soon heard in the hall.

“Not one of the bairns, Mammy?  Young Shenton, eh?” He came into the room and sat down beside the boy.  He felt his pulse, undid his waist, listened to his heart and lungs.  The doctor shook his head and frowned.  “Nothing extra-ordinary—­nothing.”  Then he brought his face close to the boy’s mouth, closer and closer.

The doctor sank back in his chair.  His shrewd eyes darted from boy to father, then to the mother.

“Do not be alarmed,” he said to Mrs. Leighton; “the lad is pheesically sound.  He will awake anon.”  The doctor arose, and stretched his arms.  “Eh, but I’ve had a hard day.  Will ye be sae gude as to give me a glass of wine, Mistress Leighton?”

Ann started as though from a trance.

“Wine, Doctor?” she stammered.  “I’m sorry.  We have no wine in the house.”

“Not even a drop of whisky?”

Ann shook her head.

“Nae whisky in the medicine-chest, nae cooking sherry in the pantry?  Weel, weel, I must be gaeing.”  And without a look at Ann’s rising color or the Reverend Orme’s twitching face the doctor was gone.

The Reverend Orme fixed his eyes upon his wife.

“When the boy awakes,” he said, “not a word to him.  Send him to my study.”  Ann nodded.  As the door closed, she fell upon her knees beside the bed.

An hour later the study door opened.  Shenton entered.  His father was seated, his nervous hands gripping the arms of his chair.  On the desk beside him lay a thin cane.  He motioned to his son to stand before him.

“My boy,” he said, “tell me each thing you have done to-day.”

There was a slight pause.

“I have forgotten what I did to-day,” answered Shenton, his eyes fixed on his father’s face.