“I fear she may again rise in her sleep and fall down stairs,” said the more anxious mother.
“Turn the key on the outside, till we retire ourselves,” observed the father.
To be locked up alone in the darkness! Helen felt as if she had heard her death-warrant, and pale even to blueness, she leaned against her mother, incapable of articulating the prayer that trembled on her ashy lips.
“Give her to me,” said Miss Thusa, “I will take her up stairs and stay with her till you come.”
“Oh, no, there is no fire in the room, and you will be cold. Mr. Gleason, the child is sick and faint. She has scarcely any pulse—and look, what a blue shade round her mouth. Helen, my darling, do tell me what is the matter with you.”
“Her eyes do look very wild,” said her father, catching the infection of his wife’s fears; “and her temples are hot and throbbing. I hope she is not threatened with an inflammation of the brain.”
“Oh! Mr. Gleason, pray don’t suggest such a thought; I cannot bear it,” cried Mrs. Gleason, with quivering accents. They had lost one lovely child, the very counterpart of Helen, by that fearful disease, and she felt as if the gleaming sword of the destroying angel were again waving over her household.
“You had better send for the doctor,” she continued; “just so suddenly was our lost darling attacked.”
Mr. Gleason started up and seized his hat, but Louis sprang to the door first.
“Let me go, father—I can run the fastest.”