"The sherry's in the cupboard down the passage," she exclaimed; "won't you have something else instead? Now, do make less noise, there's good boys; you'll get me into trouble!"
"I'll go and get it," said Kitty, breaking into a momentary step-dance, with uplifted arms. "Trust me with the key?"
"And I'll go and see she doesn't rob you," cried Carew. "Come along, Kit!"
"No you won't," said her mother; "she'll do best alone!" But the remonstrance was unheeded, and, as the girl ran out into the passage, he followed; and, as they reached the cupboard and stood fumbling at the lock, he caught her round the waist and kissed her.
They came back with the bottle together, in the girl's bearing an assertion of complacent womanhood evoked by the indignity. Carew applied himself to the liquor with renewed diligence; and by the time the party dispersed circumspectly through the private door, his eyes were glazed.
The sleeping town stretched before his uncertain footsteps blanched in moonlight as he bade the others a thick "good-night." His apartments were a mile, and more, distant, and, muddled by drink, he struck into the wrong road, pursuing and branching from it impetuously, till Westport wound about him in the confusion of a maze. Once he halted, in the thought that he heard someone approaching. But the sound receded; and feeling dizzier every minute, he wandered on again, ultimately with no effort to divine his situation. The sun was rising when, partially sobered, he passed through the cottage-gate. The sea lapped the sand gently under a flushing sky; but in the bedroom a candle still burned, and it was in the flare of the candle that the little servant confronted him with a frightened face.
"Master Archie, sir!" she faltered; "I've been up with him all night—he's ill!"
"Ill?" He stood stupidly on the threshold. "What do you mean by ill? What is it?"
"I don't know; I don't know what I ought to do; I think he ought to have a doctor."
He pushed past her, with a muttered ejaculation, to the bed where the child lay whimpering.