as desperately ill. Remedies of various sorts
were tried, and a consulting physician called, but when Babcock returned
from his office her condition was evidently hopeless. The child died in
the early night. Selma was relieved to hear the doctor tell her husband
that it was a malignant case from the first, and that nothing could have
averted the result. In response to questions from Lewis, however, she
was obliged to admit that she had not been at home when the acute
symptoms appeared. This afforded Babcock an outlet for his suffering. He
spoke to her roughly for the first time in his life, bitterly suggesting
neglect on her part.

"You knew she wasn't all right this morning, yet you had to go
fiddle-faddling with that architect instead of staying at home where you
belonged. And now she's dead. My little girl, my little girl!" And the
big man burst out sobbing.

Selma grew deadly pale. No one had ever spoken to her like that before
in her life. To the horror of her grief was added the consciousness that
she was being unjustly dealt with. Lewis had heard the doctor's
statement, and yet he dared address her in such terms. As if the loss of
the child did not fall equally on her.

"If it were to be done over again, I should do just the same," she
answered, with righteous quietness. "To all appearances she had nothing
but a little cold. You have no right to lay the blame on me, her
mother." At the last word she looked ready to cry, too.

Babcock regarded her like a miserable tame bull. "I didn't mean to," he
blubbered. "She's taken away from me, and I'm so wretched that I don't
know what I'm saying. I'm sorry, Selma."

He held out his arms to her. She was ready to go to them, for the angel
of death had entered her home and pierced her heart, where it should be
most tender. She loved her baby. Yet, when she had time to think, she
was not sure that she wished to have another. When the bitterness of his
grief had passed away, that was the hope which Lewis ventured to
express, at first

John Holland Rose (1855-1942) was an influential English historian who wrote a famous biography of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and also wrote a history of Europe, entitled The Development of the European Nations. Rose was the basis for C. P. Snows fictional character M. H. L. Gay (see Years of Hope: Cambridge, Colonial Administrator in the South Seas, and Cricket by Philip Snow.)

Robert Grant may refer to: