How long she stayed there she never knew. But at last, realizing that every moment there was only making matters worse, she dragged herself up from the little heap on the floor, and trying to put a bit of cheerfulness into a face she knew must frighten Mamsie, she went slowly out, and down the stairs.
But no one looked long enough at her face to notice its change of expression. Polly, the moment she turned towards the household life again, could feel that the air was charged with some intense excitement. Hortense met her on the lower stairs; the maid was startled out of her usual nonchalance, and was actually in a hurry.
"What is the matter?" cried Polly.
"Oh! the Madame is eel," said the maid; "the doctaire says it is not a lie dees time," and she swept past Polly.
Polly clung to the stair-railing, her face whitening, and her gaze fastened upon Mrs. Chatterton's door, where Hortense was now disappearing. Inside, was a sound of voices, and that subdued stir that gives token of a sick room.
"I have killed her!" cried Polly's heart. For one wild moment she was impelled to flight; anywhere, she did not care where, to shake off by motion in the free air this paralysis of fear. But the next she started and, rushing down the stairs and into Mr. King's room, cried out, "Oh! dear Grandpapa, will Mrs. Chatterton die?"
"No, no, I think not," replied the old gentleman, surprised at her feeling. "Cousin Eunice never did show much self-control; but then, I don't believe this piece of bad news will kill her."
"Bad news?" gasped Polly, hanging to the table where Mr. King was writing letters. "Oh, Grandpapa! what do you mean?"
"Bless me! where have you been, Polly Pepper," said Mr. King, settling his eyeglass to regard her closely, "not to hear the uproar in this house? Yes, Mrs. Chatterton received a telegram a half-hour since that her nephew, the only one that she was very fond of among her relatives, was drowned at sea, and she has been perfectly prostrated by it, till she really is quite ill."
Polly waited to hear no more, but on the wings of the wind, flew out and up the stairs once more.