Carrie heard, saw mamma's eyes slowly unclosing and looking up at papa; but oh! how white and very ill she looked still. She heard and ran, anxious to shut out sight and hearing,--ran out of the room upstairs to the garret, and, squeezing herself behind the old furniture in the place where she had hidden the mice, sobbed and cried as if her heart would break.
What if mamma was not dead, as she had thought at first: she might be dying still, must be very ill to look like that, and she had done it. It was all her fault.
HOW long she stayed there she did not know, now crying, now ceasing, and crouched there in a kind of dumb remorse and misery which would have been a severe punishment for even a worse fault than that of which she had been guilty. She wanted to come out and learn what was going on downstairs, and yet she did not dare to: she felt as if she could not bear to see that look upon mamma's face again. Then she would shed more bitter tears. She imagined and wondered over many things. If mamma died and went to heaven, would she know what she had done, and be so grieved and displeased at her unkindness that she would love her no longer? Were people in heaven ever troubled about the naughty things their loved ones did or had done upon the earth?
So she sat all in a heap, behind the old chairs and tables, perplexing her poor little brain, and racking her heart with all kind of imaginary consequences to this morning's occurrence. By and by she heard the servants calling her, but would not answer; then her father's voice, but now she believed that he must know all; "it had come out in some way," and she was afraid to face him and did not stir. Ruth opened the door at the foot of the garret stairs and called her name, even came up and looked about the open space, but did not see Carrie crouched in her far corner, and the little girl never stirred till she was gone.
Next she heard Nellie calling her from the garden below, her voice troubled and anxious.
"Carrie," she said, "Carrie, dear! where are you? Do answer if you can hear me. Mamma is growing so troubled because we can't find you."
Here was a scrap of comfort. Mamma was at least alive enough to inquire for, and be anxious about her. She crept to the window and looked down to where Nellie stood, calling still, and turning her eyes in every direction.