She stared at him, inquiringly.  Then she said,—­

“You may rely on me, doctor.”

“I feel I may.  Still, she alarms me.  She looks quiet enough, but she is very excitable.”

Not all these precautions gave Dr. Philip any real sense of security; still less did they to Mr. Lusignan.  He was not a tender father, in small things, but the idea of actual danger to his only child was terrible to him and he now passed his life in a continual tremble.

This is the less to be wondered at, when I tell you that even the stout Philip began to lose his nerve, his appetite, his sleep, under this hourly terror and this hourly torture.

Well did the great imagination of antiquity feign a torment, too great for the mind long to endure, in the sword of Damocles suspended by a single hair over his head.  Here the sword hung over an innocent creature, who smiled beneath it, fearless; but these two old men must sit and watch the sword, and ask themselves how long before that subtle salvation shall snap.

“Ill news travels fast,” says the proverb.  “The birds of the air shall carry the matter,” says Holy Writ; and it is so.  No bolts nor bars, no promises nor precautions, can long shut out a great calamity from the ears it is to blast, the heart it is to wither.  The very air seems full of it, until it falls.

Rosa’s child was more than a fortnight old; and she was looking more beautiful than ever, as is often the case with a very young mother, and Dr. Philip complimented her on her looks.  “Now,” said he, “you reap the advantage of being good, and obedient, and keeping quiet.  In another ten days or so, I may take you to the seaside for a week.  I have the honor to inform you that from about the fourth to the tenth of March there is always a week of fine weather, which takes everybody by surprise, except me.  It does not astonish me, because I observe it is invariable.  Now, what would you say if I gave you a week at Herne Bay, to set you up altogether?”

“As you please, dear uncle,” said Mrs. Staines, with a sweet smile.  “I shall be very happy to go, or to stay.  I shall be happy everywhere, with my darling boy, and the thought of my husband.  Why, I count the days till he shall come back to me.  No, to us; to us, my pet.  How dare a naughty mammy say to ‘me,’ as if ‘me’ was half the ’portance of oo, a precious pets!”

Dr. Philip was surprised into a sigh.

“What is the matter, dear?” said Rosa, very quickly.

“The matter?”

“Yes, dear, the matter.  You sighed; you, the laughing philosopher.”

“Did I?” said he, to gain time.  “Perhaps I remembered the uncertainty of human life, and of all mortal hopes.  The old will have their thoughts, my dear.  They have seen so much trouble.”

“But, uncle dear, he is a very healthy child.”

“Very.”

“And you told me yourself carelessness was the cause so many children die.”