The wind came sweeping and moaning up the wide staircase when the old clerk opened the door. Bessie whispered to her sister that it was the wolves. And truly it did sound as if a whole pack of them were howling without.
[CHAPTER X.]
THE WONDERFUL BOOK.
UPWARDS of a week passed away, during which Matthew Reardon was still confined to his chair, for nothing could persuade him to take to his bed. He was not worse, he said, but then he was no better. A little paler, and thinner, and weaker, perhaps; at least his wife thought so; but he did not perceive it himself, or rather, would not admit that he did. And all that time no doctor had ever called; neither had they seen or heard anything of the old clerk.
"He must be ill," said Matthew.
"He is like the rest of the world," thought Mrs. Reardon, in the bitterness of her disappointment.
While the trembling children whispered together of their firm belief that the wolves had eaten him up that wild night when he went away.
"He must be ill, I tell you," repeated Matthew, impatiently. "Marshall is not the man to desert a sick friend in the hour of need. He would have come if he could."
"Anyhow," said his wife, "he might have remembered to send the doctor as he promised."
"It does not signify. He would not have done any good, perhaps. It's hard for you, Mary, I know, to sit there working as you do from morning till night for my sake and the children's; but it's a deal harder for me to see it and not be able to help—I often wish I was dead!"