She jerked her head in the direction of Leonie, and the doctor looked.

Behind her friend’s head she knelt, her plaited hair twining like snakes to the ground, her eyes closed, her mouth slightly open, and the fingers of both hands pressing the temples of the child upon the floor, whilst to and fro, lifeless, dull, swung the great cat’s-eye from a gold chain about the neck.

“Good God!” muttered the young doctor who, having travelled the world as ship’s surgeon, knew that the scalpel and soda-cum-gentian do not constitute the whole of the art of healing.

As he looked a great bead of perspiration dropped from Leonie’s forehead, between the taut arms, on to her knees; and a sudden shiver shook her from head to foot, and he heaved his overcoat into a chair, and edged very quietly until he knelt between her and Cookie.

“It’s ’orrible, Sir!” the latter whispered, as she glanced at the pupil she loved most.

And it was.

By now the perspiration was pouring in streams from the girl’s face, whilst the slim body shook and shook like a young tree in a storm; her teeth chattered like castanets, her closed eyes were sunk in purple black orbits, the cheeks were drawn and grey, and the nostrils were dilating like those of a far-spent horse.

“For Gawd’s sake stop ’er.  Sir—­she’s a-killing of ’erself.”

The doctor shook his head, took out a brandy flask and a metal box from a leather case beside him on the floor.  He held up the ready-filled glass syringe to the light and sent a squirt of what looked like water through the gleaming needle.

“If the young lady shows signs of life I want you to get this brandy down her throat at once, and begin to massage her heart.”

“Massige! that’s same as kneading dough, ain’t it, Sir!”

“That’s it!  Miss—­Miss—­oh!  Leonie will want the most attention, she is only just alive.  I will give her another two minutes, and if nothing has happened by then I’ll stop her, though it’ll be an awful risk!”

“What’s she a-doin’ of, Sir?”

“She’s forcing her own life, her vitality into her friend; she’s practically raising the dead!”

“Lor, Sir!”

He had just raised his hand to touch Leonie, praying to heaven for the girl’s reason, when she suddenly flung back her head.

Up through the house-top, to the stars, the heavens, rushed the terrible cry, wailing as wails the wolf who has lost its mate, insisting as insists one who has staked his all on one final throw, imploring as implores the mother in the last dire throes of childbirth.

What the language was, what the words meant, to whom the prayer was addressed, no one knew.

But at the third terrible appeal to God, or Fate, or Death, or Life, and even as those who listened outside and those who ceased their labours in the room stuffed their ears with their fingers and sobbed, little Jessica opened her eyes, and smiled just as Leonie, flinging up her arms, crashed face downwards on the floor.