The listener, listening intently, here put a quiet question--"Did you
pay her?"--which caused the narrator to wince like a galled horse.

"Ah, there you hit the weak spot, Miss Urquhart, right in the
bull's-eye," he declared, sighing furiously. "If I could have paid her,
of course there'd have been no difficulty at all. But she wouldn't be
paid."

"You ought to have insisted on it," said Alice severely.

"I did insist. I insisted all I knew. But she said it was a labour of
love for her friend, and seemed so hurt at the idea of money being
brought into the question, that I was ashamed to press her beyond a
certain point. She let me pay for the nurse's board, and that was all.
The baby didn't eat anything, you see, and they were comfortably off,
with lots of spare room in their house, and I just looked on it as a
sort of temporary visit--until I came back--until I should be able to
turn round a bit. But"--with another sigh--"he's there yet."

Miss Urquhart nodded, with an air of utter wisdom.

"Of course you went to see the child?"

"Three times--whenever I was in port. And found him always the same--
so beautifully cared for that, upon my soul, I never saw a baby in my
life so sweet and clean and wholesome-looking; jolly as a little
sandboy all the time, too."

"That means that he had a perfect constitution--inherited from
you evidently--and that you were fortunate in the nurse."