“You may not be afraid, but we are.  We should have to take care of you, and one case is more than enough.”

Suddenly she clutched me by the arm.  “Tell me what this awful thing is!  I demand to know!”

“Mrs. Tuis,” said the doctor, interfering, “we are not yet sure what the trouble is, we only wish to take precautions.  It is really imperative that you should not handle this child or even go near it.  There is nothing you can possibly do.”

She was willing to take orders from him; he spoke the same dialect as herself, and with the same quaint stateliness.  A charming little Southern gentleman—­I could realise how Douglas van Tuiver had “picked him out for his social qualities.”  In the old-fashioned Southern medical college where he had got his training, I suppose they had taught him the old-fashioned idea of gonorrhea.  Now he was acquiring our extravagant modern notions in the grim school of experience!

It was necessary to put the nurse on her guard as to the risks we were running.  We should have had concave glasses to protect our eyes, and we spent part of our time washing our hands in bichloride solution.

“Mrs. Abbott, what is it?” whispered the woman.

“It has a long name,” I replied—­“opthalmia neonatorum.”

“And what has caused it?”

“The original cause,” I responded, “is a man.”  I was not sure if that was according to the ethics of the situation, but the words came.

Before long the infected eye-sockets were two red and yellow masses of inflammation, and the infant was screaming like one of the damned.  We had to bind up its eyes; I was tempted to ask the doctor to give it an opiate for fear lest it should scream itself into convulsions.  Then as poor Mrs. Tuis was pacing the floor, wringing her hands and sobbing hysterically, Dr. Perrin took me to one side and said:  “I think she will have to be told.”

The poor, poor lady!

“She might as well understand now as later,” he continued.  “She will have to help keep the situation from the mother.”

“Yes,” I said, faintly; and then, “Who shall tell her?”

“I think,” suggested the doctor, “she might prefer to be told by a woman.”

So I shut my lips together and took the distracted lady gently by the arm and led her to the door.  We stole like two criminals down the veranda, and along the path to the beach, and near the boathouse we stopped, and I began.

“Mrs. Tuis, you may remember a circumstance which your niece mentioned to me—­that just before her marriage she urged you to have certain inquiries made as to Mr. van Tuiver’s health, his fitness for marriage?”

Never shall I forget her face at that moment.  “Sylvia told you that!”

“The inquiries were made,” I went on, “but not carefully enough, it seems.  Now you behold the consequence of this negligence.”

I saw her blank stare.  I added:  “The one to pay for it is the child.”