Madeline shook as if seized with a sudden palsy as she stood in the doorway. Her lips refused to move or form a sound; her heart was beating in her very throat, and would assuredly choke her. She could not have asked a question if her life depended on it.
Mrs. Holt, hearing steps, threw down her apron and confronted her.
“Ay, I thought it might be you!” she ejaculated in a husky voice. “Well, it’s all over!... He died, poor darling, at daybreak, in these arms!” holding out those two hard-working extremities to their fullest extent, with a gesture that spoke volumes.
“I will not believe it; it is not true; it—it is impossible!” broke in the wretched girl. “The doctor said that there was no danger. Oh, Mrs. Holt, for God’s sake, I implore you to tell me that you are only frightening me! You think I have not been a good mother, that I want a lesson, that—that—I will see for myself,” hurrying across the kitchen and opening a well-known door.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
DEATH AND SICKNESS.
Alas! what was this that she beheld, and that turned every vein in her body to ice? It was death for the first time. There before her, in the small cot, lay a little still figure, with closed eyes and folded hands, a lily between them; the bed around it—yes, it was now it—already strewn with white flowers, on which the morning dew still lingered. Who strews white flowers on the living? Yes, Harry was dead! There was no look of suffering now on the little brow; he seemed as if he was sleeping; his soft fair curls fell naturally over his forehead; his long dark lashes swept his cheek. He might be asleep! But why was he so still? No breath, no gentle rising and falling disturb his tiny crossed hands, so lately full of life and mischief—and now!
With a low cry Madeline fell upon her knees beside the child, and laid her lips on his. How cold they were! But, no he could not be dead! “Harry, Harry,” she whispered. “Harry, I have come. Open your eyes, darling, for me, only one moment, and look at me, or I shall go mad!”
“So you have come,” said a voice close to her, and starting round she saw Laurence, pale and haggard from a long vigil, and stern as an avenging angel. “It was hardly worthwhile now; there is nothing to need your care any longer. Poor little child! he is gone. He wanted you; he called as long as he could articulate for his ‘mummy’—his ‘pretty, pretty mummy.’” Here his faltering voice broke, and he paused for a second, then continued in a sudden burst of indignation. “And whilst he was dying, his mother was dancing!” glancing as he spoke at her visible, and incriminating white satin shoes.
“I only got the telegram this morning at six o’clock,” returned Madeline with awful calmness. The full reality had not come home to her yet.
“You were summoned when the child was first taken ill. Yes, I know you had a great social part to play—that you dared not be absent, that you dared not tell your father that another, the holiest, nearest, dearest of claims, appealed to you,” pointing to the child. “You have sacrificed us, you have sacrificed all, to your Moloch—money. But it is not fitting that I should reproach you here; your conscience—and surely you are not totally hardened—will tell you far sadder, sterner truths than any human lips.” She stood gazing at him vacantly, holding the brass bar at the head of the bed in both hands. “It may be some poor consolation to you to know that, although your presence would have been a comfort, nothing could have saved him. From the time the change set in last evening, the doctor pronounced the case hopeless.”