It was something over a week later that Lee awoke suddenly in the night
and sat erect, with stiffened muscles. Her skin was chilled as if her
sleeping body had been caught in a current of night air. A taper burned
in a cup of oil. She glanced towards the door. It was closed. Her cot
was in a corner, out of the reach of window draughts. Her shoulders
approached each other. Something was certainly wrong, quite different
from the usual routine of night. The taper faintly illumined the
large room over which her expanding eyes roved. A red light flashed
across the wall like a scythe, accompanied by the dull grumble of the
cable car. Everything in the room was as she had arranged or left
it for the night. Even the flannel petticoat Mrs. Tarleton had been
embroidering for her daughter was on the table where she had dropped
it. The needle stood up straight and focussed a beam of light. It was
the same commonplace comfortable room, with whose every feature Lee
was intimate; yet over these features to-night rested a thin film of
something unfamiliar.
Lee gave way to unreasoning terror. “Memmy!” she called, “memmy!”
Mrs. Tarleton was a light sleeper, but she did not answer.
Lee sprang to the floor and ran towards her mother’s bed. She paused
within a foot of it, her knees jerking. Mrs. Tarleton lay on her side,
her face to the wall, her arm along the counterpane. In both arm and
hand was the same suggestion of unreality, of change, as in the room.
Lee fled out into the hall and down the stairs to Cecil’s room. His
door was unlocked. He awakened to find himself standing on his feet,
striking out furiously.
“It’s only me,” gasped Lee, who had received a smart blow in the
shoulder. “Something’s the matter with memmy. Come quick.”
“All right, I will. You stay here and I’ll go into father’s room and
dress.”
He lifted Lee to the bed and went into the next room. Mr. Maundrell
entered a moment later and lit the gas. He looked keenly at Lee’s
scared white face, then went out by the hall door. He did not return
for some little time. When he did he met his son and Lee--who was
enveloped in Cecil’s overcoat--ascending the stairs. He turned them
back.
“Mrs. and Miss Hayne are with your mother,” he said. “Get into Cecil’s
bed and go to sleep. I will take him in with me.”
“I never leave memmy to other people,” faltered Lee; and then she put
her hands to her ears, and shuddered, and crouched against Cecil. “I
can’t sleep,” she gasped. “Don’t leave me alone.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Maundrell hastily. “You go into the sitting-room,
both of you. Cecil, you had better make her a cup of tea.”
Cecil half carried Lee into the sitting-room, put her on the sofa, lit
all the burners, and fell to making tea with nervous fingers and every
sign of deep embarrassment. When he had finished he walked rapidly over
to Lee, jerked her upright, and held the cup to her lips.
“Drink it!” he said in his most peremptory manner. Lee gulped it down.
Cecil returned to the table, drank a large measure, then went back to
Lee and put his arms about her.
“Now,” he said with an effort which brought his brows together and sent
the blood to his hair, “you can cry if you like.”
Lee promptly buried her head in his bosom and wept wildly, with abrupt
and terrible insight. Cecil could think of nothing to say, but he
gathered her in and gave her little spasmodic hugs. He felt very much
like crying himself, and at the same time wished with all his heart
that it were three days later. He concluded that a girl must get all
cried out in that time.