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“Where is the boy?” he asked.

“Just run to the doctor’s, sir,” she answered.

Then first he remembered that when he left in the morning his wife had not been feeling altogether well, but he had never thought of her since.

“How is your mistress?” he said.

“She’s rather poorly, sir, but–but–she’s as well as could be expected.”

“What does the fool mean?” said Dempster to himself, and very nearly said it aloud, for he was not over polite to any in his service. But he did not say it aloud. He advanced into the hall with deliberation, and made for the stair.

“Oh, please sir,” the maid cried in a tone of perturbation, when, turning from shutting the door, she saw his intention, “you can’t go up to mis’ess’s room just at this minute, sir. Please go in the dining-room, sir.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, turning angrily upon the girl, for of all things he hated mystery.

Like every one else in the house, and office both, she stood in awe of him, and his look frightened her.

“Please go in the dining-room,” she gasped entreatingly.

“What!” he said and did turn towards the dining-room, “is your mistress so ill she can’t see me?”

“Oh, no, sir!–at least I don’t know exactly. Cook’s with her, sir. She’s over the worst, anyhow.”

“What on earth do you mean, girl? Speak out, will you? What is the matter with your mistress?”

As he spoke he stepped into the room, the maid following him. The same moment he spied a whitish bundle of something on the rug in front of the fire.

“What do you mean by leaving things like that in the dining-room?” he went on more angrily still.

“Please, sir,” answered the girl, going and lifting the bundle carefully, “it’s the baby!”

“The baby!” shouted Mr. Dempster, and looked at her from head to foot. “What baby?” Then bethinking himself that it must belong to some visitor in the drawing-room with his wife, he moderated his tone. “Make haste; take it away!” he said. “I don’t want babies here! There’s a time and a place for everything!–What are you about?”

For, instead of obeying her master and taking it away, the maid was carefully looking in the blanket for the baby. Having found it and turned aside the covering from its face, she came nearer, and holding up the little vision, about the size and colour of a roll of red wax taper, said:–

“Look at it, sir! It’s your own, and worth looking at.”

Never before had she dared speak to him so!

I will not venture to assert that Mr. Dempster turned white, but his countenance changed, and he dropped into the chair behind him, feeling less of a business man than had been his consciousness for the last twenty years. He was hit hard. The absolutely Incredible had hit him. Babies might be born in a day, but surely not without previous preparation on the part of nature at least, if not on that of the mother; and in this case if the mother had prepared herself, certainly she had not prepared him for the event. It was as if the treasure of Nature’s germens were tumbling all together. His head swam. He could not speak a word.

“Yes, sir,” the maid went on, relieved of her trepidation in perceiving that her master too was mortal, and that her word had such power over him–proud also of knowing more of his concerns than he did himself, “she was took about an hour and a half ago. We’ve kep’ sendin’ an’ sendin’ after the doctor, but he ain’t never been yet; only cook, she knows a deal an’ she says she’s been very bad, sir. But the young gentleman come at last, bless him! and now she’s doin’ as well as could be expected, sir–cook says.”

“God bless me!” said the astonished father, and relapsed into the silence of bewilderment.

Eight years married with never a glimmer of offspring–and now, all at once, and without a whisper of warning, the father of a “young gentleman!” How could it be other than perplexing–discomposing, indeed!–yet it was right pleasant too. Only it would have been more pleasant if experience could have justified the affair! Nature–no, not Nature–or, if Nature, then Nature sure in some unnatural mood, had stolen a march upon him, had gone contrary to all that had ever been revealed of her doings before! and why had she pitched on him–just him, Duncan Dempster, to exercise one of her more grotesque and wayward moods upon?–to play at hide-and-seek with after this fashion? She had not treated him with exactly proper respect, he thought, or, rather vaguely felt.