‘It’s somebody crossing over here,’ said Kit, standing up to listen, ‘and coming very fast too. He can’t have gone out after I left, and the house caught fire, mother!’
The boy stood, for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he had conjured up, of the power to move. The footsteps drew nearer, the door was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale and breathless, and hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments, hurried into the room.
‘Miss Nelly! What is the matter!’ cried mother and son together.
‘I must not stay a moment,’ she returned, ‘grandfather has been taken very ill. I found him in a fit upon the floor—’
‘I’ll run for a doctor’—said Kit, seizing his brimless hat. ‘I’ll be there directly, I’ll—’
‘No, no,’ cried Nell, ‘there is one there, you’re not wanted, you—you—must never come near us any more!’
‘What!’ roared Kit.
‘Never again,’ said the child. ‘Don’t ask me why, for I don’t know. Pray don’t ask me why, pray don’t be sorry, pray don’t be vexed with me! I have nothing to do with it indeed!’
Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide; and opened and shut his mouth a great many times; but couldn’t get out one word.
‘He complains and raves of you,’ said the child, ‘I don’t know what you have done, but I hope it’s nothing very bad.’