“Yes, considerable of an accident. I fancy it would have done for me, Marie-Celeste, if I had not fallen into the hands of these good people here.”
“But oh, Ted,” why didn't you send us word? Mamma and I would have come down and taken care of you every moment and she spoke as though they would have just loved to do it.
“Marie-Celeste, you are a dear child;” and Ted, who was hungering at last for the love of kith and kin, could not keep his eyes from growing a little misty. He realized, too, how he had done absolutely nothing; to warrant this little affectionate outburst, and felt sorely humiliated—a sensation which had been very common to poor Ted of late.
“How did the accident happen?” asked Marie-Celeste; and touched by his grave face, she moved a little farther up on the rug.
“Oh, by being a fool, as usual! We were off on a lark, four of us, and I got into a fix so than I couldn't manage the horses, and—”
“Ted, do you mean”—and then Marie-Celeste hesitated—“do you mean that you really took so much wine that you did not know what you were about?” for she wanted to understand the whole matter clearly, no matter how shocking it might prove.
“Yes, that was it, Marie-Celeste;” but the child little guessed how the high-strung fellow winced under the confession, and how his self-disgust never reached quite such high-water mark as at that moment.
“Well, go on,” said Marie-Celeste in a tone of utter hopelessness; and then she added, with the air of a little grandmother, “don't keep anything back, Ted; I would rather know all there is.”
“Well, that's about all there is, Marie-Celeste, and it's enough, isn't it? I was caught under the trap as it went over, and they picked me up as good as dead and carried me into the Hartleys.”
“But you told us all at Windsor you were going on a driving trip with Mr. Allyn.”