CHAPTER XI.

Reconciled.

JANET could hardly believe her own eyes when, on her return from visiting the chemist, she found Paul's little bed empty, and the child nowhere to be seen. She searched for him through the hotel, thinking that he must have wandered from his bed in delirium. Then, with a new sense of horror, she discovered that his clothes had vanished likewise. Even his little overcoat and cap were missing, so he must have gone out of doors. Surely someone had come during her brief absence and carried him away. Like one distracted, she ran to inform the manager of the hotel.

He was startled by her statement that the child had been stolen, but assured her that it was impossible for anyone to enter the hotel and carry off the child unseen.

"He cannot be far off; he must be found directly," he said. And sent his servants hither and thither in search of the wanderer.

Janet herself went to and fro, searching in every likely and unlikely place without result till she was almost beside herself. No light had been thrown on the mystery when Paul's mother drove up to the hotel accompanied by her friends.

How Janet told her mistress she never could remember. The faithful servant was too miserable already to suffer much more, when Mrs. Bernard turned on her with bitter reproaches.

"You had no right to leave him for an instant!" cried the anguish-stricken mother. "I thought I could trust you. My child is lost to me now. I will never forgive you, never."

"Don't say that he is lost," said Mrs. Dunton, "that is impossible. He cannot be far off; he must be found immediately."

Mrs. Bernard shook her head. Her face had grown white and set.

"This is my husband's doing," she said in Mrs. Dunton's ear. "He has taken my boy from me; I knew he would."

"That cannot be," replied her friend. "Why should he do such a thing? It was agreed that you should keep Paul till he was seven years old."

Mrs. Bernard made no reply. The idea that had taken possession of her mind was not to be lightly dislodged. Just then the manager hurried towards her with a note in his hand.

"This has been brought this moment for madame," he said; "perhaps it contains news of the child."

Her hands trembled visibly as she tore open the envelope. It contained but a few words, yet it took her some moments to grasp their meaning, so great was her agitation.

"MY WIFE,—I have found our child lying senseless in a street corner. I have brought him here. He seems very ill. Will you come?

"Your husband,

"JOHN BERNARD.

"96, Via Nazionale."

In a few minutes, Mrs. Bernard was in a carriage on her way to the Via Nazionale. Mrs. Dunton had offered to accompany her; but she preferred to take Janet, in spite of her indignation with that honest servant.

Mrs. Bernard said scarce a word as they drove along. She was astounded by the facts presented by that brief note. Her husband in Rome! That he should find his child senseless in the street!

"A pretty mother he will think me!" she said to herself with anguish. "He will surely judge me unfit to be longer the guardian of his child."

Yet there was sweetness as well as bitterness in the thoughts suggested by the note. As she held it tight within her hand, she was glad to remember that it began with "my wife" and ended with "your husband." Husband and wife! "What God has joined together." The hot tears sprang to her eyes; then her thoughts turned back to her child in deep anxiety.

She felt like one in a dream when her husband, who was on the look-out for her, helped her to alight from the carriage and led her into the house. She had a dim sense that he looked older and thinner than she remembered him. His voice was so gentle that it made her afraid.

"How is he?" she asked with faltering voice. "Tell me the worst at once, please. He is not—he is not—"

"No, no," said her husband; "he is unconscious and in a high fever, but I have good hope that he will recover! The doctor is with him now; you shall see him in a few minutes, but pray calm yourself first."

"You must think me a most careless mother," she said; "but I left him in good hands, as I thought. Janet was responsible for him; she can perhaps explain how he came into the street."

"That I cannot indeed," said Janet. "I left him fast asleep in bed, and I just ran round to the chemist's to get him some medicine. I was not away more than half an hour; but when I got back, he was gone!"

John Bernard looked keenly at the nurse as she spoke. He recognised her as the woman he had seen with Paul in the cemetery. He felt, too, that she spoke truly, and was worthy of trust.

"It was a pity you left him; but it cannot be helped now," he said kindly; "no doubt he was delirious when he got up and ran out. When I undressed him, I found that his clothes were huddled on in the strangest fashion."

A few minutes later, they were all standing beside the bed on which Paul lay. His stupor had passed. He was talking rapidly and incoherently; but he knew no one who looked on him. Now Janet's name was on his lips, and now his mother's. Now he talked of the Coliseum, and now he was amid the graves in the cemetery, puzzling over their connection with the heaven above. Then he began to speak of his father:

"If only my father would come!" he sighed. "I want him to carry me; I'm so tired. No, that's not my father; that's the Pope. The Pope is only the Pope; but I want my father. Why does he not come?"

"Your father is here, little Paul," said Mr. Bernard, kneeling beside the bed, "here, by your side, holding you."

But the child was conscious of neither voice nor touch. John Bernard glanced at his wife. She had covered her face with her hands.

The medical man found himself at present unable to determine the nature of the fever which had attacked the child. His exposure to the night air and sleep on the hard stones had rendered his condition more serious than it would have been if taken in hand at first. The doctor was anxious but hopeful, since his patient was a sturdy little fellow, who might battle successfully with disease. He spoke encouragingly; but Paul's mother could take no comfort from his words. She looked the image of despair as she sat beside her child. Janet went back to the hotel to fetch various things that were needed; but Mrs. Bernard would not quit the little sufferer for a moment.

Paul grew quieter about midnight. The husband and wife were alone beside him.

John Bernard turned from his child to his wife.

"Clarice," he said gently, "take comfort. He will live. Something within me tells me that he will live."

She sighed heavily.

"The voice within me says otherwise," she said after a moment; "I have been a wicked woman, John, unworthy to be the mother of such a little child, and he will be taken from me. It is my punishment."

"God's punishments are blessings, my dear wife," he replied. "Already there is mercy in this trial, since it has brought us together. The poet tells how husband and wife who had fallen out were reconciled as they stood beside a little grave. Thank God, dearest, you and I may clasp hands over a living child, and join our prayers for his recovery. Shall we do so?"

His wife broke into sobs. He threw his arms about her, drew her to his heart, and they kissed again with tears.