“Where is my grandmother, Erminie?” asked Ray, whose white, stern face, had terrified her from the first.
“In bed.”
“Then go up and waken her.”
“Waken her at this hour! Why, Ray!”
“Yes; you must, I tell you. Go at once.”
Ray’s fiercely-impatient manner and strange excitement terrified Erminie more and more; but still she ventured to lift up her voice in feeble expostulation.
“What good will it do to arouse her? She can be of no service here.”
“Erminie, I tell you, you must!” passionately exclaimed Ray; “else I will go myself. Of no service here! Yonder dying man is her son—her long-lost son—supposed to have been drowned. Will you go, now?”
One moment’s astounded pause, and then Erminie flew up-stairs, and entered the aged gipsy’s room.
She was lying asleep, but she never slept soundly, and she opened her eyes and looked up as Erminie entered.