“Don’t come near me,” Arthur was calling. “If you come a step nearer, I shall jump.”
This piece of paralyzing information made the doctor pause and consider.
“Do you want to kill yourself?” he yelled.
Arthur looked at him with a strange unchildlike expression.
“Father O’Toole told me that when I died I should see my mother,” he said, “and I would rather be with her than with you. I often think of dying. I shall be able to do as I like then.”
“But your father, your poor father, think how he would miss you, Arthur,” put in Billie.
“I think papa would be glad. He doesn’t love me. Nurse told me he didn’t. He loves Max because he is the biggest and strongest and can ride horseback and shoot a rifle. He doesn’t love me,—nobody loves me——”
The boy began to cry bitterly.
The doctor moved a step nearer.
“Don’t come near me,” shrieked the child. “I shall throw myself in the water if you move again.”