eat your bread and milk?"
"I'll feed you, mother," said Marcia.
She knelt by her and put the nourishment between the blue lips.
"You are such a good girl, Marcia; so kind to me."
"Everybody ought to be kind to you," said Marcia, "and everybody willbe," she murmured under her breath.
"Marcia is an excellent girl; you have never said a truer word, MrsAldworth," remarked the doctor.
"It was very disagreeable--that dream," continued the invalid, herthoughts drifting into another quarter. "I thought--I thought I wasclimbing up and up, and it was very cold as I climbed, and I thought Iwas amongst the ice, and the great snows, and Molly was there, but along way down, and I was falling, and Molly would not come to help me.Then it was Nesta, and she would not help me either, Nesta only laughed,and said something about Flossie--Flossie Griffiths. Marcia, have youseen Flossie Griffiths? You know I don't like her much, do you?"
"I have not seen her, dear. Don't talk too much. It weakens you."
"But I'm not really ill, am I?"
"Oh, no, Mrs Aldworth," said the doctor. "You have just had an attackof weakness, but you are better; it is passing off now, and you have agrand pulse. I wish I had as good a one."
He smiled at her in his cheery way, and by-and-by he went out of theroom. Marcia followed him.
"Some one must sit up with her all night," said the doctor, "and I willstay in the house."
"Oh, doctor," said Marcia, "is it as bad as all that?"
"It is so bad that if she has another attack we cannot possibly pull herthrough. If she survives until the morning, I will call in Dr Benson,the first authority in Newcastle. The thing is to prevent a recurrenceof the attack. The longer it is stared off the greater probabilitythere is that there will be no repetition."
"I will sit up with her, of course," said Marcia. "She would ratherhave me than any hired nurse."
"I know that. I am glad. But some one must see your sisters when theycome in."
It was just at that moment that a girl, somewhat fagged, somewhat shabbylooking, with a face a good deal torn, for she had got amongst briarsand thorns and underwood on her way home, crept up the narrow pathtowards the house. This girl was her mother's darling, Nesta, theyoungest of the family, the baby, as she was called. Her time withFlossie had, after all, been the reverse of agreeable. They had beguntheir tea with every prospect of having a good time; but soon the mob ofrough people who had come to witness the donkey races discovered them,and so terrified both little girls that they ran away and hid, leavingall Flossie's property behind them.
This was thought excellent fun by the roughs of Newcastle; they scouredthe woods, looking for the children, and as a matter of fact, poor Nestahad never got a greater fright than when she crouched down in thebrambles, devoutly hoping that some of the rough boys would not pull herout of her lair.
Eventually she and Flossie had escaped with only a few scratches andsome torn clothes, but she was miserably tired and longing for comfortwhen she approached the house. So absorbed was she with her ownadventures that she absolutely forgot the fact that she had run away andleft her mother to the care of the others. As she entered the house,however, it flashed upon her what might be thought of her conduct.
"Dear, dear!" she thought, "I shall have a time of it with Mollyto-night; but I don't care. I'm not going to be bullied or browbeaten.I'll just let Miss Molly see that I'm going to have my fun as well asanother. I wish though, I didn't sleep in the room with them; they'llbe as cross and cantankerous as two tabby cats."
Nesta entered the house. Somehow the house did not seem to be quite asusual; the drawing room was not lit up; it had not been used thatevening. She poked her head round the dining-room door. There was noappetising and hearty meal ready for tired people when they returnedhome. What was the matter? Why, her father must be back by this time.She went into the kitchen.
"Cook!" she said.
"Keep out of my way, Miss Nesta," said the cook.
"What do you mean? Where is my supper? I want my supper. Where areall the others? Where's Molly? Where's Ethel? I suppose that stupidold Marcia is back now? Where are they all?"
"That's more than I can tell you," said cook, and now he turned roundand faced the girl. "I only know that it's ten o'clock, and that youhave been out when you ought to be in, and as to Miss Molly and MissEthel, I don't want to have anything to do with them in the future.Here's Susan--she'll tell you why there ain't no supper for you--she'llspeak a bit of her mind. Susan, here's Miss Nesta, come in as gay asyou please, and asks for her supper. And where are the others, saysshe, and where's Marcia, says she. And is she back, says she. MissMarcia is back, thank the Lord; that's about the only thing we have tobe thankful for in this house to-night."
"Dear me, cook, I think you are remarkably impertinent. I shall askmother not to keep you. Mother never would allow servants to speak tous in that tone. You forget yourself, Susan."
"It's you that forgets yourself, Miss Nesta," said Susan. "There;where's the use of stirring up ill will? Ain't there sorrow enough inthis house this blessed night?"
"Sorrow," said Nesta, now really alarmed. "What is it?"
"It's your mother, poor soul," said Susan. She looked into Nesta's faceand there and then determined not to spare her.
"Mother? Mother?"
For the first time the girl forgot herself. There fell away from herthat terrible cloak of selfishness in which she had wrapped herself.
"Mother? Is anything wrong with her?"
"Dr Anstruther is upstairs, and he is going to spend the night here,and Miss Marcia is with her, and not a living soul of you is to go nearher; you wouldn't when you might, and now you long to, you won't be let;so that's about the truth, and if the poor darling holds out till themorning it'll be something to be thankful for. Why, she nearly died,and for all that I can tell you, she may be dying now."
"Nonsense!" said Nesta. "What lies you tell!"
She stalked out of the kitchen. For the life of her she could not havegone out in any other fashion. Had she attempted any other than theutmost bravado, she must have fallen. In the hall she met Molly andEthel coming in; their faces were bright, their eyes were shining. Whata good time they had had. That supper! That little impromptu danceafterwards! The tennis before supper! The walk home with Jim andHarry. Jim escorted Molly home; he had quite forgiven her, and Harrywas untiring in his attentions to Ethel. Oh, what a glorious, glorifiedworld they had been living in. But, now, what was the matter! They sawNesta and looked into her face. Full of wrath they pounced upon her.
"Don't," said Nesta. "Don't speak. Come in here."
She took both their hands, dragged them into her father's study, andshut the door.
"Look here, both of you," she said, "I've been beast; I've been thelowest down sort of a girl that ever lived, but you have been a degreeworse, and we have killed mother. Yes, we have killed her."
Ethel dropped into a chair and clasped her side with one hand.
"You needn't believe me, but it's true. She was alone all theafternoon, and Marcia came home, and she saw mother, who was nearlygone, and the doctor is here and he is going to stay all night, andperhaps she'll be dead in the morning, and we have done it--we are herown children and we have done it. You and Molly and I; we have all doneit; we are monsters; we are worse than beasts. We are horrors. I hateus! I _hate_ us! I hate us!"
Each hate as it was hurled from her young lips was uttered with moreemphasis than the last, and now she flung herself full length on thecarpet--the dirty, faded carpet, and sobbed as though her heart wouldbreak.
"We're not to go to her--she won't have any of us near her. She won'thave us now--we gave her up--she was alone all the afternoon, and now weare not to go to her, we are to stay away; that's what we are to do."
Molly was the first to recover her voice.
"It can't be as bad as that," she said.
Ethel looked u
p with a scared face. Molly's face was just as scared asher sisters'. As she uttered the words she sank, too, in a limpfashion, on the nearest chair. Then she unpinned her hat and flung itfrom her to the farthest end of the room.
"You may stay there, you horrid thing," she said. Her gloves weretreated in the same manner. She looked down at the bows on her dressand began unfastening them.
"I hate them," she said. "Mother called them pretty. I hate them!"
"What's the good of undressing