‘Mayn’t I come to you, Father?  Louie says I mustn’t come.’

‘Yes, yes; come, dear.’

In the library he sat down, and took Hughie upon his knee, and pressed the soft little cheek against his own.  Without mention of baby, the child asked at once if his father would not read to him as usual.

‘I don’t think I can tonight, Hughie.’

‘Why not, Father?  Because baby is dead?’

‘Yes.  And Mother is very poorly.  I must go upstairs again soon.’

‘Is Mother going to be dead?’ asked the child, with curiosity rather than fear.

‘No!  No!’

‘But —­ but if mother went there, she could fetch baby back again.’

‘Went where?’

Hughie made a vague upward gesture.

‘Louie says baby is gone up into the sky.’

Perhaps it was best so.  What else can one say to a little child of four years old?  Harvey Rolfe had no choice but to repeat what seemed good to Louie the nursemaid.  But he could refrain from saying more.

Alma was in a fever by night-time.  There followed days and days of misery; any one hour of which, as Rolfe told himself, outbalanced all the good and joy that can at best be hoped for in threescore years and ten.  But Alma clung to life.  Harvey had thought she would ask for her little son, and expend upon him the love called forth by her dead baby; she seemed, however, to care even less for Hughie than before.  And, after all, the bitter experience had made little change in her.

CHAPTER 7

Since the removal from Pinner, Rolfe had forgotten his anxieties with regard to money.  Expenses were reduced; not very greatly, but to a point which made all the difference between just exceeding his income and living just within it.  He had not tried to economise, and would scarcely have known how to begin; it was the change in Alma’s mode of life that brought about this fortunate result.  With infinite satisfaction he dismissed from his mind the most hateful of all worries.

It looked, too, as if the business in Westminster Bridge Road might eventually give a substantial return for the money he had invested in it.  Through the winter, naturally, little trade was done; but with springtime things began to look brisk and hopeful.  Harvey had applied himself seriously to learning the details of the business; he was no longer a mere looker-on, but could hold practical counsel with his partner, make useful suggestions, and help in carrying them out.

In the sixth month after her father’s decease, Rolfe enjoyed the privilege of becoming acquainted with Miss Winter.  Morphew took him one afternoon to the house at Earl’s Court, where the widow and her daughter were still living, the prospect of Henrietta’s marriage having made it not worth while for them to change their abode in the interim.  With much curiosity, with not a little mistrust, Harvey