Hilda took up a handkerchief she was embroidering for Judy, and took special pleasure in putting in new and exquisite stitches as her thoughts centered themselves in dull wonder and pain round the child. Quentyns became absorbed in the contents of a novel. He read for half an hour--he was by no means in a good humor, and now and then his eyes were raised to look over the top of the book at his wife. There was a patient sort of suffering about her which irritated him a good bit, as he could see no possible reason to account for it. He asked her one or two questions, which she answered in an abstracted manner.