“I must help.”
“Claire, you can’t help.”
“I can help Nancy Fazackerly.”
“Sallie is there, I think. I wouldn’t let my girls come—I have always shielded them most tenderly from dreadful sights and sounds—but I saw Sallie, I think.”
“Yes,” said Mary. “She went with her brother.”
Perhaps Mary, too, would have liked the selfish satisfaction of shielding her children from reality; but she does not indulge in it.
“Sallie!” exclaimed Claire. “What can a child like Sallie do? She has no business to be there at all. I shall go myself.”
They had a trying time with her. She kept on saying that she must go and starting up wildly to ring for her maid and order her hat and cloak to be brought, and then she broke into tears again and said, “The only thing is, am I fit for it?”
At least it afforded Mary the relief of occupation. In the end she telephoned down to the cottage hospital for news and to ask whether Mrs. Fazackerly were there.
Yes, she was there. Major Ambrey had fetched her. Old Carey was actually breathing when they brought him in, but had died without regaining consciousness within five minutes of his admission.