For a moment Duncan thought, with a great pang of relief, that some one else was filling his stepmother’s place; but he recognized her in another minute, in spite of rouge and powder and the piquant dress she wore.  His heart stirred with something like pride.  She was beautiful in her flowered hat and the caped coat that showed a foam of lacy frills at the throat; and she was sure of herself, he realized in a moment, and of her audience.  She made a fresh and appealing figure of the plucky little country bride, and the old lines fell with delicious naturalness from her lips.

Duncan’s heart hardly beat until the fall of the curtain; tears came to his eyes; and when Margaret shared the applause of the house with the gracious Peg, he found himself shaking with a violent nervous reaction.

He was still deeply stirred when he went behind the scenes after the play.  His stepmother presently came up from her dressing-room, dressed in street clothes and anxious to hurry to the hospital and have news of the little boy.

Duncan called a taxicab, for which she thanked him absently and with worried eyes; and presently, with her and with the child’s father, he found himself speeding toward the hospital.  It was a silent trip.  Margaret kept her ungloved fingers upon Penrose’s hand, and said only a cheerful word of encouragement now and then.

Duncan waited in the cab, when they went into the big building.  She was gone almost half an hour.  Darkness came, and a sharp rain began to fall.

He was half drowsy when she suddenly ran down the long steps and jumped in beside him.  Her face was radiant, in spite of the signs of tears about her eyes.

“He took the ether like a little soldier!” she said, as the motor-car slowly wheeled up the wet street.  “Mary held his hand all the while.  Everything went splendidly, and he came out of it at about four.  Mary sang him off to sleep, sitting beside him, and she’s still there—­he hasn’t stirred!  Dr. Thorpe is more than well satisfied; he said the little fellow had nerves of iron!  And the other doctor isn’t even going to come in again!  And Thorpe says it is largely because he could have his mother!”

But the exhilaration did not last.  Presently she leaned her head back against the seat, and Duncan saw how marked was the pallor of her face, now that the rouge was gone.  There was fatigue in the droop of her mouth, and in the deep lines etched under her eyes.

“It’s after six, Duncan,” she said, without opening her eyes, “so I can’t sleep, as I hoped!  We’ll have to dine, and then go straight to the theatre!”

“You’re tired,” said the boy, abruptly.  She opened her eyes at the tone, and forced a smile.