Page:Twilight of the Souls (1917).djvu/377

Rh "There is no light."

"You would do better to go to bed."

"Mamma's coming."

"She will hardly come now, Granny."

"She's coming."

A bell rang; and Addie started.

"She's coming," repeated the old woman.

Addie went downstairs and opened the door. It was Constance, with a cab, in the driving snow.

"Mamma! . . ."

"I've come. . . . I left the doctor and Papa . . . with Aunt Adeline. . . ."

"Grandmamma is expecting you . . ."

They went in. And it semedseemed [sic] to Constance as though, after the whiteness outside and all the despair yonder, she saw it snowing here, inside the house, snowing black, with dark, black snow-flakes, inside the hall, inside the rooms; and the face of her mother, sitting beside the candle, stared at her, like a ghost, with glassy eyes. . ..

"Mamma! . . ."

"Constance, there's nothing wrong . . . with Gerrit?"

"No, oh no, Mamma!"

"I'm glad, I'm glad, dear. And there's nothing wrong . . . with Ernst either?"

"No, oh no, Mamma!"

"So there's nothing wrong with any of them?"

"No, they're all well, Mamma!"