Constance put her arm round the little girl, a tiny weight for thirteen years old, and took her into the room where she had last seen her father. She was sobbing violently, not without passion, and the more distressingly because she carefully stifled every sound, and the poor little frame seemed as if it would be rent to pieces. 'Cherry, dear child, don't,' said Constance, sitting down and gathering her into her arms; 'do try and calm yourself, and think--'
'He--he--I won't tell him!' sobbed the child. 'He's a bad man--he tells stories. He said he would not hurt me--when he knew he should most terribly. Papa said it was very wrong. Papa was quite angry--he called it deceiving, he did! I won't tell him!'
'My dear child, is there anything to tell? Don't think about him, think about what is good for your mother.'
'She told me not,' sobbed Cherry, but not with the anger there had been before. 'No, no, don't ask me; she told me not.'
'Your mother? My dear little girl, whatever it is, you ought to say it. Your dear mother seems to be too ill and confused to recollect everything herself, and if it is not known whether she has been hurt, how can anything be done for her?'
Cherry sat upon her friend's lap, and with a very heaving chest said, 'If Felix says I ought--then I will. Papa said we should mind Felix-- like him.'
'I will call Felix,' said Sister Constance.
Mr. Rugg looked very impatient of the delay; but Felix, who had just come in to dinner, was summoned. He came at once, and was soon standing by Geraldine's chair.
'Yes, Geraldine, I think you ought to tell,' he said, as the loyal little thing gazed up at her new monarch. 'What did happen?'
'It was on the day after New Year's Day,' said Geraldine, now speaking very fast. 'You were all at church, and she came out of--this room with Bernard in her arms--and called to me that I might come and sit with--him, because she was going down to the kitchen to make some beef-tea. And just then she put her foot into a loop of whip-cord, and fell. She could not save herself at all, because of Bernard; but she went backwards--against the steps.'
'I did not think so. She pulled herself up by the baluster before I could get up to help her, and she never let Bernard go all the time--he did not even scream. She only said, "Now mind, Cherry, do not say one word of this to Papa or anybody else," and she told me she wasn't hurt. Oh! was she really?' as the Sister left the room.