‘What!  What’s that?’

‘The baby!’

‘Baby?  Whose baby?’

‘Your baby, of course.’

‘My baby!  Where—­where did you get it?’

Doctor Jordan burst out laughing.

‘You are like a man who has just been wakened out of his sleep,’ said he.  ’Why, Crosse, your wife has been bad all day, but she’s all right now, and here’s your son and heir—­a finer lad of the age I never saw—­fighting weight about seven pounds.’

Frank was a very proud man at the roots of his nature.  He did not readily give himself away.  Perhaps if he had been quite alone he might at that moment, as the great wave of joy washed through his soul, bearing all his fears and forebodings away upon its crest, have dropped upon his knees in prayer.  But prayer comes not from the knee but from the heart, and the whole strength of his nature breathed itself out in silent thanks to that great Fate which goes its way regardless either of thanks or reproaches.  The doctor saw a pale self-contained young man before him, and thought him strangely wanting in emotion.

‘Well!’ said he, impatiently.  ‘Is she all right?’

‘Yes.  Won’t you take your son?’

‘Could she see me?’

‘I don’t suppose five minutes would do any harm.’

Dr. Jordan said afterwards that it was three steps which took Frank up the fifteen stairs.  The nurse who met him at the corner looks back on it as the escape of her lifetime.  Maude lay in bed with a face as pale as the pillow which framed it.  Her lips were bloodless but smiling.

‘Frank!’

‘My own dear sweet girlie!’

‘You never knew.  Did you, Frank?  Tell me that you never knew.’

And at that anxious question the foolish pride which keeps the emotions of the strong man buried down in his soul as though they were the least honourable part of his nature, fell suddenly to nothing, and Frank dropped with his head beside the white face upon the pillow, and lay with his arm across the woman whom he loved, and sobbed as he had not sobbed since his childhood.  Her cheek was wet with his tears.  He never saw the doctor until he came beside him and touched him on the shoulder.

‘I think you had better go now,’ said he.

‘Sorry to be a fool, doctor,’ said Frank, blushing hotly in his clumsy English fashion.  ‘It’s just more than I can stand.’

‘Sir,’ the doctor answered, ’I owe you an apology, for I had done you an injustice.  Meanwhile your son is about to be dressed, and there is hardly room for three men in one bedroom.’