The doctor turned and looked at the child, and at that instant she suddenly wriggled and twisted herself from the porter’s arms to the ground, and, running to the silent form lying on the bank, crouched down and clutched a bit of the brown dress in her hands.
“Mammie,” she said, confidently, looking round with her great, blue eyes on the circle of faces, all of which expressed horror, pity and sadness; “Mardie’s mammie!”
The doctor stooped, drew back the handkerchief, and glanced from the living to the dead.
“Yes,” he said, abruptly; “this is her mother. Heaven have mercy on her, poor little soul!”
The lady who had come forward went up to the child, her eyes filled with tears. She loosened the dress from the small fingers.
“Mardie must be good,” she said, tenderly, “and not wake her mammie. Mammie has gone to sleep.”
The child looked at the still form, the covered face.
“Mammie seep,” she repeated; “Mardie no peak, mammie—be good,” and she lowered her voice to a whisper and repeated, “be good.” She suffered herself to be lifted in the kind, motherly arms, and pressed her bit of wood closer to her, humming in a low voice.
“We must find out who she is,” the doctor said, his eyes wandering again and again to the dead woman. “She must be carried to the town; there will be an inquest.”
A passenger at this moment pointed to some vehicles coming toward them. They could not drive close to the spot, as a plowed field stretched between the railway and the road, and one by one the group dispersed, all stopping to pat the child’s face and speak to her. The doctor gave some orders to the porter who had found the child, and a litter, formed of a broken carriage door, was hastily improvised. As the crowd withdrew, he knelt down by the dead woman, and, with reverent hands, searched in the pockets for some clew. He drew out a purse, shabby and small, and, opening this, found only a few shillings and a railway ticket, a second-class return from Euston to Chesterham. In an inner recess of the purse there was a folded paper, which disclosed a curl of ruddy-gold hair when opened, and on which was written: “Baby Margery’s hair, August 19th.”