“Yes, the child keeps asking for me, and I must go.”
“What child?” Maude asked, with her usual impulsiveness.
There was a quivering of the muscles around Georgie’s mouth, and a spasmodic fluttering of her white throat, as if the words she was going to utter were hard to say; then, with her face turned away from Maude’s clear, honest blue eyes, she said very calmly:
“It is a little girl my step-mother adopted. Her name is Annie, and she always calls Jack brother, and me her sister Georgie. Perhaps mamma told you my step-mother had recently died.”
“No, she didn’t. I’d forgotten you had a step-mother living,” Maude said, and Georgie continued:
“Yes, Jack’s mother, you know. She died a month or so ago, and this child met with an accident,—hurt her back or hip, and it was to see her that I was going to Chicago.”
Georgie finished her statement quietly, and then, turning to Mrs. Churchill, asked if she should not again wet the napkin and bathe her head and face. She was very calm and collected, and her white hands moved gently over Mrs. Churchill’s hot, flushed face, until she declared herself better, and bade Georgie go and rest herself. Georgie was not tired, and said she would just look in upon Roy, to whom she repeated, in substance, what she had told his mother of the dreadful accident. Roy had heard the most of the particulars from Russell, but they gained new force and interest when told by the beautiful Georgie, whose voice was so low, and tender, and sorrowful, and whose long lashes, half veiling the soft eyes, were moist with tears as she spoke of “dear Charlie and his poor young girl-wife.” That was what she called her when with Roy, not “the girl,” but “his poor young girl-wife.” She had seen at once that with Roy she must adopt a different tone with regard to Edna, for Roy was eager in his inquiries and sorry that she had not come to Leighton, “her proper place,” he said.
Georgie tried to be open and fair with Roy, who, she knew, hated a lie or anything approaching it, and so she incidentally mentioned the nature of her business to Chicago, and told of the recent death of her step-mother, of whom Mr. Leighton had, of course, heard. Roy could not remember, but supposed he had, and then Georgie told him of little Annie Heyford, her adopted sister, and said she must still go and see to her. And Roy thought how kind she was, and hoped the little Annie would not suffer for her absence, or her brother be greatly inconvenienced. Georgie reassured him on both points, and then, as he seemed to be very tired and his limb was beginning to pain him, she left him for a time, and returned to Mrs. Churchill.
CHAPTER V.
ROY’S DECISION.
