"We'll make Basil and Bruce read aloud," cried Rob. "They're too big to be idle, and far too big to be generally useful."
Prue, obediently, left the room. As she reached the hall she heard a groan from her father's room, and heard him gasp: "Mary, Rob—oh, come!"
She rushed back to the dining-room, where Cousin Peace sat serenely in the breezy window, while Wythie and Rob put away the dinner dishes, and the Rutherfords were tormenting them. How beautiful it looked, how peaceful, to the frightened girl standing speechless in the doorway, with that hoarse moan of pain echoing in her ears, unheard by the others! Wythie looked up and saw Prue's face. The saucer she held fell to the floor in fragments. "Prue—what?" she gasped.
Everyone sprang up, and Mrs. Grey seized Prue's arm, in mute appeal.
"Papa's sick or hurt; he's groaning and trying to call," Prue managed to say.
Miss Charlotte, Wythie, Rob, and the boys pushed Prue aside, starting for the room across the hall, but Mrs. Grey's love outstripped them. She it was who first reached her husband's side, and knelt in terror beside his arm-chair, where he half sat, half lay, his face ashen, his breath short. His right hand pressed his chest, the left arm hung at his side, the pulse in the wrist hardly perceptible to his wife's fingers.
"What is it, dear? Can you tell me?" asked Mrs. Grey. Wythie and Miss Charlotte were bathing his temples, while Rob, on her knees at the other side of his chair, had loosened his collar.
For answer Mr. Grey pressed his hand closer to his breast, moving it slightly, but his lips barely moved.
"Bartlemy, run, run for the doctor!" cried Mrs. Grey. "Stay, Basil and Bruce—I may need you."