“There, child, just you stop at home and mind the little ones. You’re not fit for the streets. You’ve got a touch of the fever yourself. I’ve got a day’s charing, and I’ll be glad to leave you at home with the children. Keep them as quiet as you can, and I’ll ask Mrs. Gregg to look in upon you whilst I’m away. I daresay she’ll cheer you up a bit.”
For tears of weakness and depression were running down little Allumette’s face. It had come into her mind that if she really had the fever the summons to the country would arrive too late. They would not let a sick child go lest she should do harm to the others. She had been fighting and fighting against the fear that she too was sickening—fighting against it for a whole long week. Now she could not fight any longer, and whilst Bertram Clayton was picturing her revelling in the delights of rural life she lay upon the wretched bed with the other sick children, parched with thirst, wasted by fever, talking in low, soft tones of happy days which seemed present to her again in a dream, but by no means always conscious of her surroundings, or certain who was with her.
At the beginning of August the tenant of the Hampstead house gave it up, and the Claytons came back to make preparations for Madge’s wedding, which was now little more than a month distant.
Blooming and radiant was Madge after her happy time at her future home, Eva was almost strong again from her visit to foreign baths, and Bertram and Cora looked quite brown after their climbs amid the surrounding hills.
They had so much to say that first evening that it was only just last thing before they parted at night that Bertram suddenly exclaimed—
“Ah, by-the-by! did you get my letter, about little Allumette? I can’t remember when or how I posted it; but I daresay it reached you all right.”
“What letter?” asked Madge, and seemed about to say more, only he spoke again quickly—
“Oh, the one telling you to keep her longer—to let her have August too down there. But I daresay you would not want prompting about that.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Madge. “I never got that letter at all. The only time you mentioned Allumette to me was once when you said you were glad she had got away into the country. I meant to ask you who had taken her. I am going to have her down to my new home (I’ll tell you all about that some other time) as soon as it’s ready, but that won’t be before October. But we’ll make up to her for the waiting when we get her.”
Bertram looked a little puzzled.