The child silently obeyed, refusing, by a disdainful gesture, my offer to carry her. That night I could not get to sleep. It seemed as if I too was listening for a returning footstep. About one o’clock, there was a sound on the staircase. I got up, opened my door, and seeing that the night-light was burning in the hall, stepped out.
Robertson, with his hand on the railing, and a terribly red face, was coming slowly upstairs. Just as he reached his door, a little, white-robed figure stole into the hall. She ran up to him. “Oh my darlin’, darlin’ boy,” with a curious catching of her breath, “I fought you was lost, like de Babes in de Wood.”
He steadied himself against the wall, only half comprehending what she said. Then he muttered thickly, “Go to bed, child.”
“Vewy well,” she murmured obediently, then standing on tip-toe, “Kiss me good-night, Woland.”
With abashed eyes and shamed countenance, the young man looked down at the innocent, baby face, shining out of its tangle of curls. He was not fit to kiss her and he knew it. He turned his head from her, and in tones harsher than he really meant said, “Go away, Daisy.”
The child still clung to him. She did not understand why the caress should be denied her. Suddenly his mood changed. He uttered an oath, pushed her violently from him, and staggered into his room.
The child fell, struck her head heavily against the floor, then lay quite white and still. I hastened toward her, took her up in my arms, and rapped at her mother’s door. Mrs. Drummond was still up, sitting before a table, making entries in an account book. She started in nervous surprise, then when I explained matters, looked toward the empty crib, and said, “She must have slipped by me when my back was turned. Has she fainted? She sometimes does. I don’t know why she should be such a delicate child. Please put her in the crib. I will get some brandy.”
I glanced uneasily at the child’s pale face, then quitted the room. Early the next morning, Mrs. Drummond knocked at my door. “I wish you would come and look at Daisy,” she said querulously; “she has not slept all night, and now she has fallen into a kind of stupor; I can’t get her to speak to me.”
I hurried to the child’s cot, and bending over it said, “Daisy, don’t you want some breakfast?”
She neither moved nor spoke, and after making other ineffectual attempts to rouse her, I said, “The child is ill—you must call a doctor.”