Stitch, stitch. And then the drowsiness came back, and the clock made haste, and succeeded in striking two without waking her. She awoke, though, at a quarter past the hour, put away her work, and walked to the door to stand looking out into the street.
It is very painful to wait and wait for someone you expect, who does not come. At first you are surprised, then astonished, then you begin to be anxious, after which, if the expected person is one for whom you care much, you become seriously frightened, and imagine every terrible thing that could possibly have come to pass.
So it was with Mrs. Kayll. At three o’clock she fancied her husband must have been run over, or have met with some other accident, and before long she determined to wait no longer, but to go out and look for him.
She went upstairs, the first thing, bent over the bed where Madge was sleeping, and gently shook her by the arm. The girl opened her eyes in an instant.
“Hush, Madge! Don’t wake the others, pray.”
Madge sat upright, staring at her mother with a bewildered expression.
Madge stared at her still, evidently not quite understanding.
“I want you to dress quickly and come down, so that you could open the door if I should miss him, and then I’m going to look for him,” Mrs. Kayll said hurriedly, but without raising her voice above a whisper, so that the others slept on undisturbed.
Madge stepped out on to the floor and began to put on her clothes.
“I don’t think you need be so frightened, mother dear,” she said. “So many things might have kept him. Perhaps the baby that the little girl said was so ill, was worse, and father thought it would be cruel to come away. Or the mother may be worse, so that he could not leave the children. Or perhaps there may be a fire somewhere, and father is stopping to see it. You know how fond father is of looking at fires.”
These solutions of the puzzle had already occurred to Mrs. Kayll, but yet they seemed more possible when suggested by someone else.
“Well, dear, it can’t do any harm for me to go and see. The worst that can happen is that your father may laugh at me for being so anxious about nothing. Come down as soon as you’re ready.”
And, thinking it safer, not to talk there any longer, she went and put on bonnet and shawl, and again took up her position at the front door.