Swinny, tear-stained but inexorable, stood aloof, like rigid Justice, weighing her mistress in the balance.
"He's dying, Molly," he said gently.
She shook her head.

"No; he's not dying.

God isn't cruel.

He won't let him die." She turned the child's face to her breast, hoping perhaps that his hands would move in the old delicious way.
He did not stir, and she laid him on his back again and looked at him.
His lips and the hollows under his eyes were blue.

The collapse had come.
Louis knelt down and put his hand over the tiny heart.
A spasm passed over the baby's face, simulating a smile.