most decisively and locked it.

"Who thought of that, I wonder," he said to himself, as he watched the
four women kneeling round Jessica stretched out upon the floor.

They were going through the movements used in resuscitating the drowned,
and he, too, knelt at a nod by the side of the fat old woman in an
emerald green moirette petticoat and a somewhat _déclassé_ bedjacket, who
was breathing heavily through the unaccustomed exercise.

"Let us be--a bit, Sir!" she panted. "She don't some'ow feel--quite--as
dead--like! Give us a--a chance. One--two--three--four. It's
the--reg'lar--as does--it. Miss Lee--onny's orders--Sir--bless er----"

She jerked her head in the direction of Leonie, and the doctor looked.

Behind her friend's head she knelt, her plaited hair twining like snakes
to the ground, her eyes closed, her mouth slightly open, and the fingers
of both hands pressing the temples of the child upon the floor, whilst to
and fro, lifeless, dull, swung the great cat's-eye from a gold chain
about the neck.

"Good God!" muttered the young doctor who, having travelled the world as
ship's surgeon, knew that the scalpel and soda-cum-gentian do not
constitute the whole of the art of healing.

As he looked a great bead of perspiration dropped from Leonie's forehead,
between the taut arms, on to her knees; and a sudden shiver shook her
from head to foot, and he heaved his overcoat into a chair, and edged
very quietly until he knelt between her and Cookie.