“I said she did, too,—oh—always,” breathed Russy in the awful dark. “I had to. When it’s your mother, you have to—”
“I never had one, I told you! How do I know? Go on.”
He was driven on relentlessly. He had it all to go through with, and he whispered the rest hurriedly to get it done.
“I said she tucked me in,—came up a-purpose to,—an’ always kissed me twice (his only does once), an’ always—called me—Dear.” Russy fell back in a heap on the pillows and sobbed into them.
“My badness!”—anybody but a Lie would have said “my goodness,”—“but you did do it up brown that time, didn’t you! But I don’t suppose he believed a word of it—you didn’t make him believe you, did you?”
“He had to,” cried out Russy, fiercely. “He said I’d never lied to him in my life—”
“Before;—yes, I know.”
Russy slipped out of bed and padded over the thick carpet towards the place where the window-seat was in the daytime. But it wasn’t there. He put out his hands and hunted desperately for it. Yes, there,—no, that was sharp and hard and hurt you. That must be the edge of the bureau. He tried again, for he must find it,—he must! He would not stay in bed with that Lie another minute. It crowded him,—it tortured him so.
“This is it,” thought Russy, and sank down gratefully on the cushions. His bare feet scarcely touched toe-tips to the floor. Here he would stay all night. This was better than—
“I’m coming,—which way are you? Can’t you speak up?”