"I've avoided women all my life," said Biggleswade.

"And I've been too busy to think of them. God forgive me," said Doyne.

* * * * *

The history of the next two hours was one that none of the three men
ever cared to touch upon. They did things blindly, instinctively, as men
do when they come face to face with the elemental. A fire was made, they
knew not how, water drawn they knew not whence, and a kettle boiled.
Doyne accustomed to command, directed. The others obeyed. At his
suggestion they hastened to the wreck of the car and came staggering
back beneath rugs and travelling bags which could supply clean linen and
needful things, for amid the poverty of the house they could find
nothing fit for human touch or use. Early they saw that the woman's
strength was failing, and that she could not live. And there, in that
nameless hovel, with death on the hearthstone and death and life
hovering over the pitiful bed, the three great men went through the pain
and the horror and squalor of birth, and they knew that they had never
yet stood before so great a mystery.

With the first wail of the newly born infant a last convulsive shudder
passed through the frame of the unconscious mother. Then three or four
short gasps for breath, and the spirit passed away. She was dead.
Professor Biggleswade threw a corner of the sheet over her face, for he
could not bear to see it.

They washed and dried the child as any crone of a midwife would have
done, and dipped a small sponge which had always remained unused in a
cut-glass bottle in Doyne's dressing-bag in the hot milk and water of