Mavis, scarcely knowing what she was doing, reached for her hat, the while Miss Toombs watched her with sympathetic eyes.  At the same time, one of the factory foremen came into the office and put an envelope into Mavis’s hand.  She paid no attention to this last beyond stuffing it into a pocket of her frock.  Her one concern was to reach the Broughton Road with as little delay as possible.  Once outside the factory, she closely questioned the boy as he ran beside her, but he could tell her nothing beyond that Mrs Trivett had given him a penny to bring Mavis the note.  When Mavis, breathless and faint, arrived at Mrs Trivett’s gate, she saw two or three people staring curiously at the cottage.  She all but fell against the door, and was at once admitted by Mrs Trivett.

“The worst!  Let me know the worst!” gasped the terror-stricken girl.

Mavis was told that her baby was ill with diphtheria; also, that a broker’s man was in possession at Mrs Trivett’s.

“Will he get over it?” was Mavis’s next question.

“It’s for a lot of money.  It’s just on thirty pounds.”

“I mean my boy.”

“The doctor has hopes.  He’s coming in again presently.”

Mavis hurried to the stairs leading to her bedroom.  As she went up these, she brushed against a surly-looking man who was coming down.  She rightly judged him to be the man in possession.  She found the little sufferer stretched upon his bed of pain with wildly dilating eyes; it wrung Mavis’s heart to see what difficulty he had with his breathing.  If she could only have done something to ease her baby’s sufferings, she would have been better able to bear the intolerable suspense.  She realised that she could do nothing till the doctor paid his next visit.  But she had forgotten; one thing she could do:  she could pray for divine assistance to the Heavenly Father who was able to heal all earthly ills.  This she did.  Mavis prayed long and earnestly, with words that came from her heart.  She told Him how she had endured pain, sorrow, countless debasing indignities without murmuring; if only in consideration of these, she begged that the life of her little one might be spared.

Whilst thus engaged, Mavis heard a tap at the door.  She got up impatiently as she called to whomsoever it might be to enter.

Mrs Trivett came in with many apologies for disturbing Mavis.  She then told her lodger that the broker’s man was aware of the illness from which Mavis’s baby was suffering; also that, as he was a family man, he objected to being in a house where there was a contagious disease, and that, if the child were not removed to the local fever hospital by the evening, he would inform the authorities.  Mrs Trivett’s information spelt further trouble for Mavis.  Apart from her natural disinclination to confide her dearly loved child to the care of strangers, she saw a direct menace to herself should the man carry out his threat