The baby was staring at him with wise, grave eyes, as if it could have told him a thing or two if it had only been gifted with the necessary speech.
Paul knew that look.

It meant starvation.
"What is it ?" asked the child-mother.

"It is only some little illness, is it not ?" "Yes; it is only a little illness." He did not add that no great illness is required to kill a small child.
He was already writing something in his pocket-book.

He tore the leaf out and gave it to her.
"This," he said, "is for you--yourself, you understand?
Take that each day to the starosta and he will give you what I have written down.

If you do not eat all that he gives you and drink what there is in the bottle as he directs you, the baby will die--you understand?
You must give nothing away; nothing even to your husband." The next patient was the man whose voice had been heard from the safe retreat of the background.