“What is it?” I whispered, looking at Paul Dabney and pulling back.
My look must have made some impression on him. A queer sort of gleam of doubt seemed to pass across his face. He drew me towards the cot, keeping his eyes riveted upon me.
There lay the little boy who had never allowed me to come so near to him before, passive and still--a white little face, a body like a broken flower. I saw at once that he was dead.
“Oh, miss,” sobbed Mary, keeping her face hidden, “why didn't you keep to your plan? Oh, God have mercy on us, we have killed the poor soul!”
“Oh, indeed, Miss Gale, no. I thought you said you'd come and spend the night with me. I had a couch made up. I waited for you, and I must have fallen asleep...” Here she got to her feet, drying her eyes. We were both talking in whispers, Dabney still held my wrist, the little corpse lay silent there before us as though he were asleep. “I was waked by Robbie. Oh, my lamb! My lamb!” Again she wept and tears poured down my own face.
“I heard him,” I choked. “I would have come. But the door was locked.”
Here Mr. Dabney's fingers tightened perceptibly, almost painfully upon my wrist.
“I opened your locked door,” he sneered. “Remember that.”
Mary looked at me with bewildered eyes. “I did n't lock your door, miss.”
We stared at each other in dumb and tragic mystification.
“I came to Robbie as fast as I could,” she went on. “I was too late to see any one go out. He was in convulsions, the pitiful baby! In my arms, he died before ever I could call for help. Mr. Dabney come in almost at once and and--Oh, miss, who's to tell his mother?”
I made a move. “I must--” I began, but that cold, steel grip on my wrist coerced me.
“You go, Mary,” said Dabney, “and break it to her carefully. Send for Dr. Haverstock. This--sleep-walker will stay here with me,” he added between his teeth.
Mary, with a little moan, obeyed and went out and slowly away. Paul Dabney and I stood in silence, linked together strangely in that room of death. This was the man I loved. I looked at him.
“You look as innocent as a flower,” he said painfully. “Perhaps this will move you.”
He drew me close to Robbie. He lifted one of the little hands and laid it, still warm, in mine. The small fingers were clenched into a fist, and about two of them was wrapped a strand of red-gold hair.