Some time passed, and suddenly he awoke, looked, rubbed his eyes, stared, rubbed them again, and stared. A woman stood in front of him—had he seen her before? No, surely he had never seen her anywhere! What an odd, inquiring, searching expression was looking at him out of her two hideous black eyes! And what was that in her arms—something wrapped in a blanket?

The message in the telegram recurred to him—there had been a child! The bundle must be the child! Confound the creature! What did it want?

“Go away,” he said. “This is not the nursery!”

“I thought you might like to look at the baby, sir!” the woman replied.

Sir Wilton stared at the blanket.

“It might comfort you, I thought,” she went on, with a look he felt to be strange. Her eyes were hard and dry, red with recent tears, glowing with suppressed fire.

Sir Wilton was courteous to most women, but respected none. It was odd, therefore, that he should now feel embarrassed. From some cause, the machinery of his self-content had possibly gotten out of gear. Anyhow, no answer came. He had not the smallest wish to see the child, but was unwilling, perhaps, to appear brutal. In the meantime, the woman was parting and turning back the folds of the blanket with gentle, moth-like touch, until from behind it dawned a tiny human face for the baptism of its father’s first gaze.

The woman held out the child to sir Wilton, as if expecting him to take it. He jumped to his feet, sending the chair a yard behind him as he did, stuck his hands in his pockets, and with a look of disgust, cried, “Take the creature away!”

But he could not lift his eyes from the face nestled in the blanket. It seemed to fascinate him. The woman’s eyes flared, but she did not speak.

“Uglier than sin!” he half hissed, half growled. “I suppose the animal is mine, but you needn’t bring it so close to me. Take it away—and keep it away. I will send for it when I want it—which won’t be in a hurry!”

“He is as God made him,” remarked the nurse, quietly in spite of her growing wrath.

“Or the devil!” suggested his father.

The woman looked like a tigress. She opened her mouth, but then closed it again.

“I may say what I like of my own,” said the father. “Tell me the goblin is not mine and I will be respectful as you please. Prove it, and I will give you a hundred pounds. He’s ugly! He’s hideous! Deny it if you can!”

The woman held her peace. Even to herself she could not call the child particularly pleasant to look at. She gazed on him for a moment with pitiful, protective eyes, then covered his face as if he were dead. But she did not move.

“Why don’t you go?” said the baronet.

Instead of replying, she began to remove the coverings at the other end of the bundle and presently disclosed the baby’s feet. The baronet gazed, wondering. She took one of the little feet in her hand and spread out the five pink baby toes. Between every pair of toes stretched a thin, delicate membrane. She laid the foot down and took up the other, which showed the same peculiarity. The child was web-footed, as distinctly as any properly constituted duckling! Then she lifted the tiny hands and showed, between the middle and third finger of each, the same sort of membrane rising halfway to the points of them.