"What is it, Dr. Garvey? I did not quite catch what the boy said. An accident to little Clarice, was it?"
"Yes, and I fear a very serious one. A large stone was loosened in its bed, first by her own jump from it—they were all scrambling about on the other side of the river—and then Guy got up to jump after her, and felt the stone going. He contrived to jump off, and the stone fell, knocking the little girl down and crushing her right knee very badly. I don't think any bones are broken, for the damp and soft ground saved her a good deal, but it is a bad injury, and I fear inflammation. The child's whole system, too, has received a great shock, for she lay half in the water for some time before Guy could find the others and bring help. I would not tell Mrs. Egerton how serious it is, because she seems so unhappy already that I quite dread knocking her up altogether."
Mr. Egerton, wide awake now, listened to all this with a dark frown. If he had a soft place in his heart, it was for little Clarice; and the impression left upon his mind by what the doctor said was, that there had been great carelessness on the part of the elder children, and that Guy was in some way to blame for the whole affair.
So instead of going up-stairs to say a few kind words to his poor wife, as soon as the doctor had left him, he sent for the children, and gave them such a rating that he soon had Lizzie and Helen in tears, and Aymer in a state of speechless fury. As for poor little Guy, he was sent off to bed supper-less, as a punishment for the accident which was breaking his warm little heart!
And need I say that not one of the four ever forgot their father's injustice? Oh, if people would but remember that injustice is the one thing a child never forgets! One act of that, and your child never really trusts you again. And why did not Mr. Egerton remember how terrible he had thought his father's face of anger, when he raised his eyes from his sister's dead face and saw him riding up? Was he not doing the very same thing now? However, having thus relieved his feelings a little, Mr. Egerton went up to the room where the child lay, and where Elise sat, pale and quiet, beside the bed.
Next day Clarice was in great danger. The knee was frightfully inflamed, and fever ran high. All her long thick curls had to be out off to cool her poor little burning head; and her mother and sisters spent every hour of the day, and of the next night, in bathing the knee with cold water, to keep down the inflammation.
For many a day, the child hung between life and death; and when at last she began to get better, she was but the ghost of the lovely, rosy, sunburnt child of a little time ago; and, what was worse, the injury proved to be a lasting one. The slightest attempt to stand, or even to move, without actually using the right leg, brought back inflammation and every bad symptom. Perhaps, if the Egertons had been very rich people, and could have had the best surgical advice from Dublin, she might have made a better recovery; but that of course was out of the question. And though Dr. Garvey did his best for her, poor little Clarice seemed likely to be a cripple for life, even if she did not sink under her terrible sufferings.
Mr. Egerton, after that first night, when he found (or fancied) himself in the way, returned to his usual habits. The sight of suffering was painful to him, and the little one's moans and cries were dreadful to listen to. So he kept out of the way, and only went occasionally to see the child. He wondered angrily why her constant companion, Guy, always fled on his approach; why Aymer looked sullen, and the girls nervous, when in his presence. But, though annoyed, he was not sufficiently roused to inquire; so he wrapped his mantle of selfish abstraction still closer round him, and went back to his books and papers.
