“Don’t!” She flushed, miserably.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” said poor Wally, his task almost beyond him. “I only want to say you needn’t ever go there again. She—she isn’t there, Mrs. Archdale!”
“Are you mad?” The colour died out of her face, and for a moment the agony of her eyes robbed the boy of speech.
“I mean it,” he said, faltering. “If it was all—all wrong, Mrs. Archdale? If your little kiddie had never died?” Something choked his voice; he could only look at her with honest, pitying eyes. But the mother’s eyes were keen.
“You know something!” she said; “there is something!” Her voice rose to a wailing cry. “Tell me, for God’s sake!”
Across the grass came a voice that rang shrilly sweet.
“Muvver!”
Babs came running with swift bare feet; behind her, Norah, half afraid, yet wholly unable to restrain her once the remembered voice had raised its mother cry. At the sight of the baby form, with outstretched arms, the mother uttered a low, incredulous sob—a sound so piteous that Wally turned away sharply, lest he should see her face. Her feet would not carry her to meet her baby. She fell on her knees on the grass, and Babs flung herself bodily upon her, soft and sweet, and quivering with love.
There came a clatter of hoofs. Jack Archdale, riding home, had pulled up to speak to Mr. Linton and Jim; and suddenly he broke from them like a madman, and, not waiting for gates, put his horse at the log fence of his paddock, cleared it, and raced to the house. He flung the bridle over a post, and ran wildly to them—past Jean and Norah, sitting together on a stump, not able to speak, and speechless himself, to where his wife crouched over their child; Babs, who stroked her mother’s cheek gently, crooning in her funny little voice: “Poor—poor!”
Norah felt Wally’s hand upon her shoulder.