And while they were still turning the revelation over wonderingly in their minds, Polly Haddon called to them softly from the other room.
It was a bare little room into which they stepped—barer and poorer than even they had imagined. And in the midst of a little iron bed lay Peter, so pathetically white and emaciated that it tore their hearts to look at him.
“Is he very bad?” asked Billie, turning to weary-eyed Polly Haddon.
“The doctor says he almost surely will die,” answered the latter in a toneless voice. “He has just one chance out of a hundred.”
And as though speaking the doctor’s name had brought him there, the big man himself entered at that moment and the girls took that opportunity to say good-bye.
“Poor little Peter,” sighed Billie, as they walked slowly homeward. “I suppose if he dies poor Mrs. Haddon will nearly die too.”
“I wish there was something we could do,” said Vi, frowning.
“I don’t know what more we could do than we have done,” said Laura gloomily.
“Except,” said Billie thoughtfully, her eyes fixed on the far horizon, “find that invention of hers. I imagine that would make her so happy that she might even persuade poor little Peter to live.”
“Good gracious!” cried Laura, throwing up her hands in a despairing gesture. “She’s raving again, girls, she’s raving again!”