Only five or six yards now to the hat-stand, and going on tiptoe past the entrance to the drawing-room, he was in the act of taking down the cap, when the handle rattled, the door was thrown open, and the hall grew more light.
In his desperation Dexter snatched down the cap, and stood there trying to think of what he should say in answer to the question that would be asked in a moment—
“What are you doing there!”
It was Helen, chamber-candlestick in hand, and she was in the act of stepping out, when her step was arrested by words which seemed to pierce into the listener’s brain:—
“Oh, about Dexter!”
“Yes, papa,” said Helen, turning.
“What do you think about—”
Dexter heard no more. Taking advantage of Helen’s back being turned as she bent over towards the speaker, the boy stepped quickly to the staircase, ran up, and had reached the first landing before Helen came out into the hall, while before she had closed the door he was up another flight, and gliding softly toward his own room, where he stood panting as he closed the door, just as if he had been running a distance which had taken away his breath.
It was a narrow escape, and he was safe; but his ears tingled still, and he longed to know what the doctor had said about him.
As he stood listening, cap in hand, he heard Helen pass his door singing softly one of the ballads he had heard that evening; and once more a curious dull sensation of misery came over him, as he seemed to feel that he would never hear her sing again, never feel the touch of her soft caressing hand; and somehow there was a vague confused sense of longing to go to one who had treated him with an affectionate interest he had never known before, even now hardly understood, but it seemed to him such gentleness and love as might have come from a mother.