“You need not listen to any more of this,” he said. “You will find Robina somewhere in the house; go to her.”
The amazed little boy found himself in the hall, shut away from all the school-mothers—from Harriet, who looked so terrible, and who had done such queer things that he certainly could not love her any longer; from Jane Bush, who seemed nearly as bad, and yet whom he, in his childish and affectionate way, pitied; and from Patience and the others, who were quite nice, but who had only, somehow or other, seen the outside of his heart. But there was Robina, and she had not gone. He would find her.
He went slowly up the wide stairs, and when he found himself on the first landing, he looked round him. There one of the housemaids saw him. Of course she loved him: every woman in the house loved Ralph.
“What is it, little master?” she said, wondering at his pale cheeks and at the anxious expression in his eyes.
“I want Robina,” he said.
“She is shut up in her own room, little master.”
Off trotted Ralph, and knocked at the door.
“Robina, Robin; let me in!” he said.
There was silence at first in answer to his imperative summons. Then there came a broken-down voice from within.
“I can’t, Ralph: go away, please.”