She did not stir, pretending to be asleep. She heard her mother's startled gasp of joy. Then she heard her hurry to the outer door and call to Wardwell:
"Oh, Mr. Jimmie, Mr. Jimmie, come back! Come back!"
Wardwell came running back, and Rose Wilding in a choking whisper told him:
"My little darling! My little Pigeon-pie! She's here! She's here, just where I left her! Oh, Dear Heart of God, how I missed her! Come and see, she's sleeping," she whispered.
Wardwell came quietly with her to the door and looked in rather timidly. He did not know quite what to expect.
He saw a little cot, and curled up in it there was what seemed a little girl sleeping. Her loose, tumbling hair had fallen all about the face, and one little hand—a hand upon which there was no ring—held a strand of it, as though the little girl had been playing with her hair when she fell asleep.
He knew it was his wife. But, remembering his own first startled impression, he did not wonder that Rose Wilding, her mind straying in its pain, had gone back through the years to the little Augusta that had been.
Rose Wilding went gently over to the cot and knelt beside it whispering softly. Wardwell stole out of the room and closed the outer door quietly behind him.
Augusta scarcely dared breathe while her mother knelt bending over her. Her little play had succeeded, so far as to set her mother's heart at ease for the moment, but she was in mortal terror of what the effect would be if her mother should realize that she was being deceived.
After what seemed an eternity of anxiety, she heard her mother rise, go out quietly, lock the hall door, and turn out the light. Then she came back and moved about quietly in the dark, preparing for bed.