Another week had hardly passed, when Keith was waked up again at night, but this time by a noise as if the house was falling. As he sat up in bed, staring wildly about him, his nostrils became filled with a smell that was quite new to him. It was like smoke, but more pungent.
The living-room was dark, but the door to the parlour stood open, and light came through it. Not a sound could be heard for a few moments.
Then his mother came running into the room and flung herself on her knees beside the chaiselongue.
"Oh, my boy, my boy, my boy!" she cried over and over again as she pressed Keith to her breast, rocking him back and forth.
A few seconds later the father also came in carrying the lamp in one hand. Having put it on the dining table, he dropped down on a chair as if too exhausted to stand up.
His face showed a pallor quite strange to it and for the first and only time in his life Keith thought that his father looked scared.
"Don't, Anna," the father said after a while, sitting up straight on the chair. "It's all right now--"
Then a thought or a memory seemed to recur to him, and he said in a voice that nearly broke:
"God, but it was a close call for both of us! And if it had happened to you, I would have followed you on the spot!"
"Carl, Carl!" cried the mother, letting Keith go and throwing her arms about her husband instead. "What would have become of Keith?"