CHAPTER X.
LOOKING AT HERSELF.
That night, which was long remembered in the annals of the Maybright family as one of the dreariest and most terrible they had ever passed through, came to an end at last. With the early dawn Polly was brought home, and about the same time Nurse and Maggie reappeared with baby on the scene.
Flower, after she had briefly told her tidings, went straight up to her own room, where she locked the door, and remained deaf to all entreaties on David’s part that he might come in and console her.
“She’s always dreadful after she has had a real bad passion,” he explained to Fly, who was following him about like a little ghost. “I wish she would let me in. She spends herself so when she is in a passion that she is quite weak afterwards. She ought to have a cup of tea; I know she ought.”
But it was in vain that David knocked, and that little Fly herself, even though she felt that she hated Flower, brought the tea. There was no sound at the other side of the locked door, and after a time the anxious watchers went away.
At that moment, however, had anybody been outside, they might have seen pressed against the window-pane in that same room a pale but eager face. Had they looked, too, they might have wondered at the hard lines round the young, finely-cut lips, and yet the eager, pleading watching in the eyes.
There was a stir in the distance—the far-off sound of wheels. Flower started to her feet, slipped the bolt of her door, ran downstairs, and was off and away to meet the covered carriage which was bringing baby home.