“Esther,” he says at last, “it must be done!  It must be done!  Give him to me!”

“Oh, David, don’t hurt him!”

The man has turned to brute.  He seizes the child as the spoiler of a city might begin his rapine.

“Pour the medicine—­quick!”

It is ready.

“Now, Davy, you must take this, or I don’t know but papa will—­I don’t know but papa will kill you.”

Up and down the little form is hurled.  Stubbornly the little will contends for its own liberty.  Rougher and rougher become the motions, darker and darker becomes the man’s face—­Satanic now—­a murderer, bent on having his own will.

“Oh, David, David!”

“Keep still, Esther!  I’ll tolerate nothing from you!”

Has there been a surrender of the gasping child?  The man is too murderous to hear it.

“I’ll take it, papa!  I’ll take it, papa!”

It is a poor, wheezing little cry, barely distinguishable.  How long it has been coming to the understanding of those terrible captors cannot be known.

How eagerly does the shapely little hand clutch the spoon.  “Another,” he nods.  It is swallowed.  The golden head is hidden in the couch.

And David Lockwin sits trembling on the bed, gazing in hatred on the medicine that has entered between him and his foundling.

“Papa had to do it!  Papa had to do it!  You will forgive him, pet?” So the woman whispers.

There is no answer.

The man sprays the air.  “You won’t blame papa, will you, Davy?”

The answer is eager.  “No, please!  Please, papa!”

It is a reign of terror erected on the government of love.  It is chaos and asthma together.

“It is a horrible deed!” David Lockwin comments inwardly.

“Mother will be so glad,” says Esther.  She pities the man.  She would not have been so cruel.  She would have used gentler means, as she had been doing for twenty-eight hours!  And Davy would have taken no medicine.

The room is at eighty degrees.  The spray goes incessantly.  The medicine is taken every half hour.

At three o’clock the emetic acts, giving immediate relief.

“I have heard my mother say,” says Esther, “that a child is eased by a change of flannels.  He is better now.  I think I will put on a clean undershirt.”

The woman takes the sick child in her lap and sits near the stove.  The difficulties of the night return.

Why should the man’s eyes be riveted on that captive’s form!  Ah!  What a pitiful look is that on golden-head’s face!  The respiration is once more impeded.  The little ribs start into sight.  The little bellows of the body sucks with all its force.  The breath comes at last.  There is no complaint.  There is the mute grandeur of Socrates.

“It is in us all!” the man cries.

“What is it in us all, David?” asks the woman.