The Prime Minister, in a silence full of love and understanding, folded his dark cloak round her.
* * * * *
It was dark in the attic. Elsie crouching alone in the blackness by the fireplace where the dead mouse had been, put out her hand to touch its cold fur.
* * * * *
There were wheels on the gravel outside—the knocker swung strongly—‘Rat-tat-tat-tat—Tat! Tat!’ A pause—voices—hasty feet in strong boots sounded on the stairs, the key [p205 turned in the lock. The door opened a dazzling crack, then fully, to the glare of a lamp carried by Mrs. Staines.
‘Come down at once. I’m sure you’re good now,’ she said, in a great hurry and in a new honeyed voice.
But there were other feet on the stairs—a step that Elsie knew. ‘Where’s my girl?’ the voice she knew cried cheerfully. But under the cheerfulness Elsie heard something other and dearer. ‘Where’s my girl?’
After all, it takes less than a month to come from India to the house in England where one’s heart is.
Out of the bare attic and the darkness Elsie leapt into light, into arms she knew. ‘Oh, my daddy, my daddy!’ she cried. ‘How glad I am I came back!’