CHAPTER XXI
THE GREAT FIRE
Edward Conway sat on the little porch till the stars came out, wondering why the old nurse did not return. Sober as he was and knew he would ever be, it seemed that a keen sensitiveness came with it, and a feeling of impending calamity.
“Oh, it's the cursed whiskey,” he said to himself—“it always leaves you keyed up like a fiddle or a woman. I'll get over it after a while or I'll die trying,” and he closed his teeth upon each other with a nervous twist that belied his efforts at calmness.
But even Lily grew alarmed, and to quiet her he took her into the house and they ate their supper in silence.
Again he came out on the porch and sat with the little girl in his lap. But Lily gave him no rest, for she kept saying, as the hours passed: “Where is she, father—oh, do go and see!”
“She has gone to Millwood through mistake,” he kept telling her, “and Mammy Maria has doubtless gone after her. Mammy will bring her back. We will wait awhile longer—if I had some one to leave you with,” he said gently, “I'd go myself. But she will be home directly.”