“Oh, well,” said Deborah, scenting spite, “I daresay it is more comfortable in the cool house.”

And then she left him, in the position of a self-indulgent idler, preferring comfort to duty, a foil to his more conscientious rival.  When the dust of the departure had cleared away, he sat on, not in the cool house, but on the hot verandah, nursing his griefs in solitude.  He seemed the only person left behind, or else he seemed forgotten, as a guest of no account.  “What a Christmas Day!” was again his thought, while he dragged before his mind’s eye old pictures of his English home, his dead mother, Santa Claus stockings, and all sorts of pathetic things.  He resolved to quit Redford on the morrow, and spend the last hours of his leave in establishing his son elsewhere.

Then Mary Pennycuick came out to him, with that son in her arms.  Her face was redeemed from its plainness by the tender motherliness and the no less tender friendliness of its expression; that of little Harry was cherubic.  The heart of the lonely man warmed to both.

“He has come to tell daddy that he is a good boy now,” explained Mary proudly.  Guthrie ejaculated “Sonny boy!” and held out his arms.  The baby, bearing no malice, tumbled into them, and was at once occupied with his father’s watch-chain.  The three subsided upon two cane chairs, looking, as Mary keenly comprehended, like a self-contained family.

“You have stayed at home because of him!” the man complained fretfully.

But the girl hastened to perjure herself with the assertion that she had done nothing of the kind.  She then persuaded him to the half-belief that his child was not only no nuisance to the house, but its positive delight; and she earnestly talked him out of his cruel resolve to return it to bad air and all sorts of domestic risks.  “How can he be any burden on us?” she pleaded.  “We need never see him unless we like—­ only, of course, we shall like.  It is entirely an arrangement between you and Mrs Kelsey.  Unless,” she bethought herself—­“unless you’d like to consider an idea of Alice Urquhart’s—­”

“Oh, no!” he broke in.  “I’d rather Mrs Kelsey—­a proper business agreement—­if I could feel absolutely certain—­”

“Well, you can,” said Mary.  “The beginning and end of all the trouble to us is our answering for Mrs Kelsey.  She was once our nurse, and we know her ways; for the rest, she is as independent of us as that lady in Sandridge.”

“In that case—­of course, I’ve very little time, and really I don’t know where to turn—­perhaps until after this voyage—­”

“Yes.  Then, if you are dissatisfied, you can make a change.”  She assumed the matter settled, and began to go into details.  “Deb saw Mrs Kelsey while you were away; she’s willing enough.  She says ten shillings a week would cover everything.  The drainage is all right.  Kelsey will see that he has one cow’s milk.  They’ll feed him well, but they won’t give him rich things; she’s the most careful woman.  He’ll be out in the air, getting strong, all the time.  He’ll want hardly any clothes in the country.  Deb says he’d be better without shoes and socks.”