I could not think of leaving without saying good-by to Mrs. Barnett. My hand shook as I pushed a hatpin through my cap. Then I told Daddy where I was going and ran out into the darkness.
When I reached the poor little house they insist on calling the rectory the dear woman opened her arms to greet me, and I saw that her beautiful eyes were filled with tears.
"What is the matter, dear?" I asked.
"I was a coward to-day," she cried. "Such an awful coward! I had no business to leave when Dr. Grant told me to. I should have stayed and helped. But when he spoke of diphtheria I couldn't help it and thought of my little chaps. I have already seen that dreadful thing come and sweep little lives away, just in a day or two. It took the one we buried on the other side of the cove, and we saw it suffocating, helpless to aid. And that's why I ran out, terror-stricken. But I hear that you held the baby for him. You don't know what it is to have babies of your own, and were not afraid. It is dreadful, you know, that fear that comes in a mother's heart!"
She looked quite weak when she sat down, in a poor, worn, upholstered chair that was among the things they brought from England, and I sat on the arm of it, beside her.
"I have changed all my clothes," I told her, "and I don't think I'm dangerous. Now Daddy insists that we must leave to-morrow, and I'm just broken-hearted about it. Dr. Grant wrote him that it would be better for us to leave, but I don't want to go."
"Did the doctor write that?" she exclaimed.
"Yes, because there might be danger in my staying longer. Why can't I share it with all the others who will have to stay here? I shall never forgive him!"
I suppose that we were both rather excited, and I know I had to dab my eyes with my handkerchief. Then Mrs. Barnett forgot all about her own worries, for she was patting me on the arm, looking at me intently all the time, just as Daddy has been doing, in a queer way that I can't understand.
"I daresay it will be best for both of you," she said, in that sweetest voice of hers.