I do not know how it was, probably the patient was not forgotten, but in a moment the grave doctor was asking me if I had seen the last bulletin about the yacht regatta.  He took the keenest interest in the contest, and described to me the build and sailing qualities of the different yachts entered, and expressed his opinion as to which would win, and why.  From this he passed to the city government and the recent election—­like a true New Yorker, his chief interest centred in the city politics and not in the national elections.  Without the least unbending from his dignity, he told me many anecdotes about city politicians, which would have been amusing if I had not been anxious about other things.

The afternoon passed, and the night, and the day, I cannot tell how.  But at evening I knew by the movements in the house that the crisis had come.  I was waiting in Henderson’s library.  An hour passed, when Henderson came hurrying in, pale, excited, but joyous.

“Thank God,” he cried, “it is a boy!”

“And Margaret?” I gasped.

“Is doing very well!” He touched a bell, and gave an order to the servant.  “We will drink to the dear girl and to the heir of the house.”

He was in great spirits.  The doctor joined us, but I noticed that he was anxious, and he did not stay long.  Henderson was in and out, talking, excited, restless.  But everything was going very well, he thought.  At last, as we sat talking, a servant appeared at the door, with a frightened look.

“The baby, sir!”

“What?”

Alas! there had been an heir of the house of Henderson for just two hours; and Margaret was not sustaining herself.

Why go on?  Henderson was beside himself; stricken with grief, enraged, I believe, as well, at the thought of his own impotence.  Messengers were despatched, a consultation was called.  The best skill of the city, at any cost, was at Margaret’s bedside.  Was there anything, then, that money could not do?  How weak we are!

The next day the patient was no better, she was evidently sinking.  The news went swiftly round the city.  It needed a servant constantly at the door to answer the stream of sympathetic inquirers.  Reporters were watching the closed house from the opposite pavement.  I undertook to satisfy some of them who gained the steps and came forward, civil enough and note-books in hand, when the door was opened.  This intrusion of curiosity seemed so dreadful.

The great house was silent.  How vain and empty and pitiful it all seemed as I wandered alone through the gorgeous apartments!  What a mockery it all was of the tragedy impending above-stairs—­the approach on list-shod feet of the great enemy!  Let us not be unjust.  He would have come just the same if his prey had lain in a farmhouse among the hills, or in a tenement-house in C Street.

A day and a night, and another day—­and then!  It was Miss Forsythe who came down to me, with strained eyes and awe in her face.  It needed no words.  She put her face upon my shoulder, and sobbed as if her heart were broken.