of insisting on the removal of the child.  Montague Devitt was much bound up with the town’s municipal authorities.  In this capacity, it was conceivable that he might discover the identity of the child’s mother; failing this, her visits to the hospital to learn the child’s progress would probably excite comment, which, in a small town like Melkbridge, could easily be translated into gossip that must reach the ears of the Devitt family.  The cloud of trouble hung heavily over Mavis.

“Can’t—­can’t anything be done?” she asked desperately.

“It’s either the hospital or paying the broker.”

“How much is it?”

“Twenty-nine pounds sixteen.”

“That’s easily got,” remarked Mavis.  “At once?” asked Mrs Trivett, as her worn face brightened.

“I don’t suppose I could get it till the morrow.  It would be then too late?”

“But if you’re sure of getting it, something might be arranged.”

“Would the man take my word?”

“No.  But he might know someone who would lend the money in a way that would be convenient.”

“See him at once.  Find out if anything can be done,” urged the distracted mother.

Five minutes later, whilst Mavis was waiting in suspense, Mrs Trivett came up to say that the doctor had come again.  Mavis had no time to ask her landlady what she had done with the broker’s man, as the doctor came into the room directly after he had been announced.  He was quite a young doctor, on whom the manners of an elderly man sat incongruously.  He glanced keenly at Mavis as he bowed to her; then, without saying a word, he fell to examining the child’s throat.

“Well?” asked Mavis breathlessly, when he had satisfied himself of its condition.

“I must ask you a few questions,” replied the doctor.

“What do you wish to know?” she asked with anxious heart.

He asked her much about the baby’s place of birth, subsequent health and diet.

When Mavis told him of the Pimlico supplied milk, which she had sterilised herself, he shook his head.

“That accounts for the whole trouble,” he remarked.  “You should have fed him yourself.”

“It didn’t agree with him, and then it went away,” Mavis told him.

“Ah, you had worry?”

“A bit.  Do you think he’ll pull through?”

“I’ll tell you more to-night,” he informed her.

Mavis attracted men.  The doctor, not being blind to her fascinations, was not indisposed to linger for a moment’s conversation, after he had treated the baby’s throat, during which Mavis thought it necessary to tell him the old story of the husband in America who was preparing a home for her.

“Some chap’s been low enough to land that charming girl with that baby,” thought the doctor as he walked home.  “She’s as innocent as they make ’em, otherwise she wouldn’t have told me that silly husband yarn.  If she were an old hand, she’d have kept her mouth shut.”