The child was born, a boy, strong and lusty--to Jeremy the incarnation of miraculous wonder. That the thing was alive, with legs and arms and feet and hands, and could utter sounds, which it did with much vigour, made demands almost too great on his credulity.
This was a poser for Jeremy. For the pink brat was like nothing on earth--save any other newborn infant.
"I think," he said hesitatingly, "I think he may be said to resemble Cupid. He has a mouth like Cupid's bow."
"And Cupid's wings?" she laughed. "Fie, Jeremy, I thought we had born to us a Christian child."
"But that he has a body," said Jeremy, "I should say he was a cherub. He has eyes of a celestial blue, and his nose----"
"Yes, yes, his nose?" came breathlessly from Barbara.
"I'm afraid, my dear, there is so little of it to judge by," said Jeremy.
"Before the summer's out I shall be able to judge for myself," said Barbara, and terror gripped the man's heart.
The days passed, and Barbara rose from her bed and again sang and laughed.
"See, I am strong enough to withstand any operation," she declared one day, holding out the babe at arm's length.
"Not yet," said Jeremy, "not yet. The child needs you."
The child was asleep. She felt with her foot for its cradle, and with marvellous certainty deposited him gently in the nest and covered him with the tiny coverlet. Then she turned to Jeremy.
"My husband, don't you wish me to have my sight restored?"
"How can you doubt it?" he cried. "I would have you undergo this operation were my life the fee."
She came close to him and put her hands about his maimed face. "Dear," she said, "do you think anything could change my love for you?"
It was the first hint that she had divined his fears; but he remained silent, every fibre of his being shrinking from the monstrous argument. For answer, he kissed her hands as she withdrew them.
At last the time came for the great adventure. Letters passed between Jeremy and Mr. Hattaway of St. Thomas' Hospital, who engaged lodgings in Cork Street, so that they should be near his own residence in Bond Street hard by. A great travelling chariot and post-horses were hired from Bullingford, two great horse-pistols, which Jeremy had never fired off in his life, were loaded and primed and put in the holsters, and one morning in early August Jeremy and Barbara and the nurse and the baby started on their perilous journey. They lay at Reading that night and arrived without misadventure at Cork Street on the following afternoon. Mr. Hattaway called in the evening with two lean and solemn young men, his apprentices--for even the great Mr. Hattaway was but a barber-surgeon practising a trade under the control of a City Guild--and made his preparations for the morrow.