Nelly began to breathe fast. She caught Laura's sleeve with both hands.
"Don't you go, Miss—I'll not stay with her." She nodded towards her landlady.
"Now, Nelly, you must be a good girl," said Mrs. Dixon, rising and coming forward—she was a strange, ugly woman, with an almost bald head—"you must do what your poor papa wud ha wished you to do. Let the lady go, an I'll take care on you same as one o' my own, till they can come and take you to the House."
"Oh! don't say that!" cried Laura.
But it was too late. The child had heard the word—had understood it.
She looked wildly from one to the other, then she threw herself against the side of the chair, in a very madness of crying. Now, she pushed even Laura away. It seemed as though at the sound of that one word she had felt herself indeed forsaken, she had become acquainted with her grief.
Laura's eyes filled with tears.
Polly, standing at the door, spoke to her in vain.
* * * * *
"There's another train—Mr. Seaton said so!" Laura threw the words over her shoulder as though in anger. Hubert Mason stood behind her. In her excitement it seemed to her that he was dragging her by force from this sobbing and shrieking misery before her.