He leaped to his feet and snatched her into his arms. The babe cried
sleepily from its mother's room. She tenderly disengaged herself, left
him in the door, moved on to the child's crib, and in the dim light of
the bedside taper, facing him from beyond it, soothed the little one by
her silent touch.

To Arthur, wan and frail though she was, the sight was heavenly fair, a
vision of ineffable peace to which it seemed a sacrilege to draw nearer;
but she beckoned, and he stole to the spot. With the quieted babe in its
crib between them, the pair knit arms about each other's neck and
kissed.

"My own! my own at last!" murmured the husband. "I never had you until
now!"

"The cure has worked, dear heart," breathed the wife,--"worked without
surgery, has it not?"

"The cure has worked," he replied,--"worked without the sacrifice. Oh,
the sudden sweet ease of it!"

Whispering a fervent good-night in response to hers, he covered her head
and brows with caresses; then stole away with eyes still fastened on
her, and at the dividing threshold waved a last parting and closed the
door.