Only Bobbin at once slipped into a heavy, long coat and shoes and rushed back to Polly's room. The door was locked, but she pounded patiently and automatically on the outside, unable, of course, to hear the answering voice from within.
Then there came a sudden hoarse shout from below stairs and in that instant Mr. Webster, dashing up a flight of steps almost at one bound, returned with the baby in his arms, while Mollie led one of the small boys and the nurse the other.
"Come on, you and Polly, at once!" Mollie cried, waving her hands and pointing toward the great hall to show that there was no time for further delay.
But this was evident enough to Bobbin without being told, for the smoke was pouring out of the parlor into the hall and coming up the stairs like a great advancing army.
However, Bobbin would not leave her post. There was not the faintest thought in her brain of ever stirring from without that locked door until the one person whom she loved in the world should come forth from it. And she was not conscious of feeling particularly afraid, only she could not understand why Miss O'Neill would not hurry.
A moment later, however, and Bobbin found herself outside standing alone in the snow.
There had been no possible outcry on her part, no explanation and no argument, of course. Only when one of the farm laborers rushing up-stairs had seen the little girl loitering in the hall, without saying by your leave, he had seized her in his arms and borne her struggling through the now stifling smoke.
Outside in the yard Bobbin for a moment felt weak and confused. For all at once the place seemed to be swarming with excited people.
There were a dozen men and their families living on the big farm with houses of their own. And now the ringing of a great bell had brought them all out with their wives and children as well.
The women were swarming about Mollie with their children, crying, gesticulating, talking. It was a clear, white night and Bobbin could see them easily. The men were engaged in rushing back and forth with pails of water, fearing that the water might freeze on the way.
Bobbin did not try to attract attention. In the instant it did not even occur to her that she might not have been able to make any one understand. Simply and without being seen she slipped into one of the big front windows, opened by the men as a passage-way, and started fighting her way again up the black, smoke-laden steps.