They drove rapidly to the coloured hospital where Dr. Newton was to operate on Jean. Mimi held his tiny form close to her, stifling its screams in the softness of her breast. On her face was fear, despair, agony without hope. She was haunted by the spectre of death, she saw before her Petit Jean lifeless, never again to coo and smile and welcome her with soft little cries. Not until now did she realize how much he meant to her. She felt guilty of a great crime, of putting food into her own body when it might have averted this horrible thing. Even Dr. Newton’s assurance in answer to her timid questioning that physicians did not know the cause of the malady other than that it was due to the thinness of the intestinal walls of an infant, that most frequently it occurred in apparently perfectly healthy and well-cared-for children, her feeling of guilt did not leave her. Jean’s eyes were closed. He seemed to be in a deep stupor from which he roused only when another spasm of pain came over him. Mimi kissed him feverishly, madly, as the nurse took him gently from her. …
Up and down the hall she paced oblivious of