Then she rose from the deep arm-chair, stood up, and put her two hands on Fly’s shoulder.
“What have I done? What do you accuse me of?”
“Don’t! You hurt me, Flower; your hands are so hard.”
“I’ll take them off. What have I done?”
“We are awfully sorry you came here. We all are; we all are.”
“Yes? you can be sorry or glad, just as you please! What have I done?”
“You have made father, our own father—you have made him ill. The doctor thinks perhaps he’ll die, and in any case he will be blind.”
“What horrid things you say, child! I haven’t done this.”
“Yes. Father was out all last night. You took baby away, and he went to look for her, and he wasn’t well before, and he got a chill. It was a bad chill, and he has been ill all day. You did it, but he wasn’t your father. We are all so dreadfully sorry that you came here.”
Flower’s hands dropped to her sides. Her eyes curiously dilated, looked past Fly, gazing so intently at something which her imagination conjured up that the child glanced in a frightened way over her shoulder.