Perhaps there was reproach in my tones, but I did not mean it. Then my step-mother went away. "She will feel it awfully; she is just devoted to him," said Alex. PART TWO, CHAPTER THIRTEEN. WAITING TO BE CALLED. We sat on and on in the dusk. After a time Hannah went away. We scarcely noticed her when she got up. She stooped and kissed us, and said, "Poor children!" and it seemed to me as she left the room as though she were our old nurse back again, caring for us as she used to do when we were motherless and too young to see after ourselves. But she went, and she had scarcely disappeared through the door before we forgot her, we were so absorbed waiting for the message which might come to us any moment from upstairs. Hannah had not been gone ten minutes before we heard a carriage with a pair of horses dash up to the door. It stopped. We heard the muffled thud of the wheels on the thick straw outside, and we heard the door of the carriage being opened, and two men got out. They were not kept waiting an instant at the door. Muriel, our parlour-maid, must have been expecting them. We heard them enter, and they went upstairs quite softly, making little sound on the thick carpets. Then there was silence. Alex clasped my hand and squeezed it very hard; and as to Charley, he rumpled up his hair and finally buried his head in my lap and began to sob afresh. I was glad to be with them both; I felt very close to them. All else was forgotten except the two boys who belonged to me, who were my very, very own, and the father who might be dying upstairs. By-and-by the doctors went away; the carriage disappeared, and there was silence again in the house, only the muffled sound of carts and carriages going over the street outside; but nobody came near us. "It looks bad," said Alex. He raised his face. The room was quite dark. Muriel had not come in to turn on the gas or to build up the fire. We were glad she had not done so. We thought it kind of her. A piece of coal fell into a great chasm of red now, and broke into a flame, and I saw Alex's face; it was ghastly white. "It is quite awful, isn't it?" he said. "She certainly said she would come down if there was no hope," I said. "But oughtn't she to let us know, Dumps?" "She would certainly come if she could," I answered. After a time my cramped limbs compelled me to rise. I stood up, and the two boys looked at me reflectively. "Where are you going, Rachel? Where are you going?" "I can't stand it any longer," I said. "I am his daughter, and you are his sons, and I think we ought to be there. I do--I do." "No," said Alex firmly; "I am not going against _her_. She has managed him all along. It would be frightfully unkind to do anything to risk giving him a start or anything of that sort. She said she'd bring us to him if it were necessary. I am not going to stir." "Will you come, Charley?" I said. "No; I'll stick to Alex," he responded.