Grace kissed her big brother “good-night” after this.
“I don’t know why, but I feel so tired to-night, I am going to sleep like a top.”
Grace was busy fulfilling this prophecy some two or three hours later when a sharp knock on her door brought her out of her dreams, and made her heart beat quickly.
“What is it?” she asked, and at sight of Val, standing in the doorway, she felt her alarm deepen.
“Is some one ill?” she asked again.
“Put on some clothes, and come into the next room. The boy is very ill, Grace. He came to me half an hour ago, frightened to death. He has broken a blood vessel, and I am going for Smythson without any further delay. I have done all I can to stop the hemorrhage, but I am afraid it is beyond me. He is flat on his back, and, happily, I found some ice downstairs, and I have put some on his chest. Just sit beside him and keep him still. A little ice in the mouth occasionally.”
Grace hustled into her clothes, and went into the next room.
How long she sat listening to the labored breathing, and holding the thin, weak hands in hers she never knew. It seemed years before Valentine reappeared with the doctor behind him.
“We must send for his mother the first thing in the morning,” Grace said, with pallid lips, as the night wore into dawn, and the three sat anxiously round the bed.
Valentine went out when the morning came, and dispatched a telegram to Polly.