She cried again, and dozed, and at intervals murmured some angry, urgently worded formula addressed to God, because her father had said to her very gravely that she must say her prayers, and ask God to bless everybody—Father and Mother and Vonnie. Lily had understood that he would not seem to attach special importance to Vonnie's need, by naming her only.
It was the middle of the night when she woke with a sudden start, and a new, compelling sense of terror.
Instinctively, she sprang, trembling, out of bed and groped her way to the door. There were lights and subdued voices without, and Lily ran out on to the stairs in her night-gown and caught at her mother's person. Dazed by the light and her own violent wakening from a heavy sleep, Lily hardly knew what happened next, or how she was taken back to her bed again.
But it was her mother who knelt by the bedside, with tears streaming down her face.
"Oh! Tell me what's happened?" said Lily. "Is it Vonnie?"
She did not know what it was that she feared.
"You oughtn't to know—I never meant you to be told till morning——" Eleanor was sobbing violently. "What can I say?—God—she's very happy with God, darling—gone to heaven——"
Amongst the disjointed words, Lily suddenly caught a flash of meaning.
"Is Vonnie dead?" she asked incredulously.
"Hush!" cried Eleanor in a sort of stifled shriek. But her head bent itself in assent.