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If he was not to lose it, there was but one thing to do. With his eyes fixed, moth-mad, on the window, he glided in, passed the two sleepers, and stealthily lifted the sash with one hand, the other poising the net. The moth dropped under, the net swept after it, and the sash slipped and fell. Mrs. Fontenette rose wildly, and when she saw first the old woman, half starting from her seat with frightened stare, and then the entomologist speechless, motionless, and looming like an apparition, she gave that cry her husband heard, and fell back upon the pillow in a convulsion.

I found the Baron sitting on the side of his bed like a child trying to be awake without waking. No, not trying to do or be anything; but aimless, dazed, silent, lost.

He obeyed, automatically, my every request. I set about getting him to bed at once, putting his clothes beyond his reach, and even locking his balcony door, without a sign of objection from him. Then I left him for a moment, and calling Senda from the nursery to the parlor told her the state of the different patients, including her husband, but without the hows and whys except that I had found him in our garden with his precious net. “And now, as it will soon be day, Mrs. Smith and I–with the servants and others–can take care of the four.”

“If I”–meekly interrupted the sweet woman–“vill go for se doctors? I vill go.” Soon she was off.

Then I went back to her husband, and finding his mood so changed that he was eager to explain everything, I let him talk; which I soon saw was a blunder; for he got pitifully excited, and wanted to go over the same ground again and again. One matter I was resolved to fix in his mind without delay. “Mark you,” I charged him, “your wife must never know a word of this!”

“Eh?–No”–and the next instant the sick woman across the way was filling all his thought: “Mine Gott! she rice oop scaredt in t’e bedt, choost so!” and up he would start. Then as I pressed him down–“Mine Gott! I vould not go in, if I dhink she would do dot. Hmm! Hmm! I am sorry!–Undt I tidt not t’e mawdt get.

“Hmm! Even I titn’t saw vhere it iss gone. Hmm! Hmm! I am sorry!

“Undt dot door kit shtuck! Hmm! Undt dot vindow iss not right made. Hmm!

“I tidn’t vant to do dot–you know? Hmm! I am sorry!–Ach, mine Gott! she rice oop scaredt in t’e bedt, choost so!” Thus round and round. What to do for him I did not know!

Yet he grew quiet, and was as good as silent, when Senda, long before I began to look for her, stood unbonneted at my side in a soft glow of physical animation, her anxiety all hidden and with a pink spot on each cheek. I was startled. Had I slept–or had she somehow ridden?

“Are the street-cars running already?” I asked.

“No,” she murmured, producing a vial and looking for a glass. “‘Tis I haf been running alreadty. Sat iss not so tiresome as to valk. Also it is safeh. I runned all se vay. Vill you sose drops drop faw me?” Her hand trembled.

I took the vial but did not meet her glance: for I was wondering if there was anything in the world she could ask of me that I would not do, and at such a time it is good for anyone as weak as I am to look at inanimate things.

“You got word to all three doctors?”

“Yes;” she gave her chin the drollest little twist–“sey are all coming –vhen sey get ready.”

XXII

That is what they did; but the first who came, and the second, brought fresh courage; for the Baron–“would most likely be all right again, before the day was over”; our child was “virtually well”; and from next door-“better!” was the rapturous news. The third physician, too, was pleased with Fontenette’s case, and we began at once to send the night- watchers to their rest by turns.