She sat up suddenly. It was a child’s voice calling “Mother!”—a sound which would, she thought, have reached her even in heaven.
“Mother! Mother! I want you!” It was Bobbetty screaming that, and no one answered him. “I want you, mother!”
“What’s the matter with Molly?” thought Mrs. Champney in a blaze of anger.
She got out of bed and hurried barefooted across the room. That baby voice was filling the whole house, the whole world, with its heartbreaking cry:
“Mother! Mother!”
Mrs. Champney went out into the hall, and there she found Robert and Molly standing in the dim light outside Bobbetty’s door—Molly with her magnificent hair hanging loose about her shoulders, her face quite desperate, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“What’s the matter?” cried Mrs. Champney.
“Hush!” whispered Robert. “Dr. Pinney said we weren’t to take him up—said it was nothing but temper. I went in to see, and he’s perfectly all right. He simply wants Molly to take him up.”
“But he’s—so little!” sobbed Molly, in a smothered voice.
“Mother! I want you, mother!” shrieked Bobbetty.