“Poor little waif,” she sighed, “poor little motherless, fatherless waif!  Why didn’t you stay in heaven?  This world has no place for you.”

Then she rose wearily, picked up the light, carried it across the room to her desk, propped a book in front of it so that its rays would not fall upon the sleeping child, opened her portfolio, and sat down to write.

When she had finished and had sealed her letter it was long past midnight.  It was addressed to Lucy in Dresden, and contained a full account of all the doctor had told her of Bart’s death.

CHAPTER XII

A LETTER FROM PARIS

For the first year Jane watched Archie’s growth and development with the care of a self-appointed nurse temporarily doing her duty by her charge.  Later on, as the fact became burned into her mind that Lucy would never willingly return to Warehold, she clung to him with that absorbing love and devotion which an unmarried woman often lavishes upon a child not her own.  In his innocent eyes she saw the fulfilment of her promise to her father.  He would grow to be a man of courage and strength, the stain upon his birth forgotten, doing honor to himself, to her, and to the name he bore.  In him, too, she sought refuge from that other sorrow which was often greater than she could bear—­the loss of the closer companionship of Doctor John—­a companionship which only a wife’s place could gain for her.  The true mother-love—­the love which she had denied herself, a love which had been poured out upon Lucy since her father’s death—­found its outlet, therefore, in little Archie.

Under Martha’s watchful care the helpless infant grew to be a big, roly-poly boy, never out of her arms when she could avoid it.  At five he had lost his golden curls and short skirts and strutted about in knee-trousers.  At seven he had begun to roam the streets, picking up his acquaintances wherever he found them.

Chief among them was Tod Fogarty, the son of the fisherman, now a boy of ten, big for his age and bubbling over with health and merriment, and whose life Doctor John had saved when he was a baby.  Tod had brought a basket of fish to Yardley, and sneaking Meg, who was then alive—­he died the year after—­had helped himself to part of the contents, and the skirmish over its recovery had resulted in a friendship which was to last the boys all their lives.  The doctor believed in Tod, and always spoke of his pluck and of his love for his mother, qualities which Jane admired—­but then technical class distinctions never troubled Jane—­every honest body was Jane’s friend, just as every honest body was Doctor John’s.