“Yes, Rosalind.”
“You have known about her perhaps all the time, though we thought you slept so sound and heard nothing! You don’t mean that you have seen her too?”
Amy stood by her sister’s knee, her hand reluctantly allowing itself to be held in Rosalind’s hand. She submitted to this questioning with the greatest reluctance, her little frame all instinct with eagerness to get away. But here she gave a hasty look upward as if drawn by the attraction of Rosalind’s eyes. How strange that no one had remarked how white and small she had grown! She gave her sister a solemn, momentary look, with eyes that seemed to expand as they looked, but said nothing.
“Amy, can’t you answer me?” Rosalind cried.
Amy’s eyelids grew big with unwilling tears, and she made a great effort to draw away her hand.
“Tell me, Amy, is there anything you can’t tell Rosalind? You shall not be worried or scolded, but tell me.”
There was a little pause, and then the child flung her arms round her sister’s neck and hid her face. “Oh, Rosalind!”
“Yes, my darling, what is it? Tell me!”
Amy clung as if she would grow there, and pressed her little head, as if the contact strengthened her, against the fair pillar of Rosalind’s throat. But apparently it was easier to cling there and give vent to a sob or two than to speak. She pressed closer and closer, but she made no reply.
“She has seen her every time,” said Sophy, “only she’s such a story she won’t tell. She is always seeing her. When you think she’s asleep she is lying all shivering and shaking with the sheet over her head. That is how I found out. She is so frightened she can’t go to sleep. I said I should tell Rosalind; Rosalind is the eldest, and she ought to know. But then, Amy thinks—”