Her mother kissed her, but made no reply, and the little house was soon wrapped in silence and darkness.
Paul Kellar, healthy, strong, and just pleasantly tired, lost very little time in falling asleep; but, his training upon the western plains having taught him to sleep lightly, he was awakened towards morning by a little sharp, impatient baby cry. He raised himself on his elbow and looked around. A pale gray light stole in through the one window; his wife lay with her face turned from him, the baby upon her arm, nestling close to her breast. How long a time had passed since she lifted the child from the empty cradle beside them, he could not know; but there was a strange stillness about the pale figure with the long brown hair that struck to his heart with a terror for which he could not account. He leaned over and looked closer at the sunken eyelids, the half-open mouth. He touched her hand; it was very cold.
At the same moment, little Louise, withdrawing her lips from the cold bosom, looked into his face with frightened eyes and a piteous wail of baby hunger.
With a loud cry, Paul Kellar sprang to his feet.
“Christina!” he cried. “Ach! mein Gott! Christina, awake, awake!”
But Christina could not answer.
What happened afterwards he could never clearly recollect. That the children came huddling and sobbing down the steep, narrow staircase; that some one fetched Edgar Harrison, and another the Herr Pastor; that kind hands were about that silent form, and tears dropped on the cold, white features, he scarcely noted. Back and forth, back and forth, treading hard and recklessly through the small house, calling to her to awake and speak to him, trying now one remedy, then calling restlessly, impatiently, for another.
“It is of no use,” said Edgar Harrison gently; “she has been dead some hours.”
“But it is impossible,” cried the half-mad husband; “she was well last night, only a little tired.”
The young physician shook his head. He was new to such scenes, and there were tears in his eyes. “It is that,” he said. “Fatigue kills as many as cholera, I think; overfatigue and, perhaps, insufficient nourishment.”