"Why," said Noll, quickly, "Dirk loves his child as well as you love me, and I thought perhaps Hagar's medicines could help it, and I didn't know there was any peril till I got into it; and oh, Uncle Richard, what will they do now that I can't come back?"
"I don't know," said Trafford, gloomily; "they are accustomed to such things, I suppose. Shall I have to command you to take off those wet clothes?"
Noll began to remove his ice-cold garments, but presently said,—
"Is there,—do you think there'll be any hope of my going back to-night, Uncle Richard? The child is dreadful sick, you know."
"Going back!—to-night! Are you crazy, Noll?" Trafford cried. "No, you will not put foot outside the door this night!"
"But, Un—"
"Hush! not another word," said his uncle, sternly. "If you have no regard for your life, I must have for you. Hagar is waiting at the door with your dry clothes. Are you ready for them?"
Noll answered "Yes," his heart suddenly filled with a dreary recollection of the sight which he had seen in Dirk's miserable abode. It seemed to him as if he could hear the sick child's wail above the war of the storm. Dirk, he thought, would watch and wait for his return, peering through the dirty little window into the gathering gloom and darkness, and, finding that he did not come, would settle back into despair again.
Noll put on the dry garments with a heavy heart. He was sure he felt strong enough to return to Culm, and although the sea barred the beach path, yet, with a lantern, he could find a way over the rocks, he thought. But Uncle Richard had utterly refused; so there was no hope, and the child must suffer on, and Dirk watch in vain.
"Oh," thought Noll, "why wasn't I more careful? Why didn't I think of the tide? Then nothing would have happened, and I could have gone back!"