She tore the bedclothes down: she beat and patted the clothes with her left hand, and the candle began to shake violently in her right.
The bed was empty.
Mrs. Dodd was half asleep when a hurried tap came to her door: she started up in a moment and great dread fell on her; was David sinking?
“Ma'am! Ma'am! Is he here?”
“He! Who?” cried Mrs. Dodd, bewildered.
“Why, him! He can't be far off”
In a moment Mrs. Dodd had opened the door, and her tongue and the nurse's seemed to dash together, so fast came the agitated words from each in turn; and crying, “Call my son! Alarm the house!” Mrs. Dodd darted into the sickroom. She was out again in a moment, and up in the attics rousing the maids, while the nurse thundered at Edward's door and Julia's, and rang every bell she could get at. The inmates were soon alarmed, and flinging on their clothes: meantime Mrs. Dodd and the nurse scoured the house and searched every nook in it down to the very cellar: they found no David.
But they found something.
The street door ajar.
It was a dark drizzly night.