Finally a door opened and shut in the back part of the
house. A moment later Mary, the Irish servant girl, came through
the dining-room, caught sight of Orde, threw her apron over her
head, and burst into one of those extravagant demonstrations of
grief peculiar to the warm-hearted of her class.
Orde stopped short, a sinking at his heart.
"What is it, Mary?" he asked very quietly.
But the girl only wept the louder, rocking back and forth in a fresh
paroxysm of grief. Beside himself with anxiety Orde sprang forward
to shake her by the arm, to shower her with questions. These
elicited nothing but broken and incoherent fragments concerning "the
missus," "oh, the sad day!" "and me lift all alone with Bobby, me
heart that heavy," and the like, which served merely to increase
Orde's bewilderment and anxiety. At this moment Bobby himself
appeared from the direction of the kitchen. Orde, frantic with
alarm, fell upon his son. Bobby, much bewildered by all this
pother, could only mumble something about "smallpox," and "took
mamma away with doctor."
"Where? where, Bobby?" cried Orde, fairly shaking the small boy by
the shoulder. He felt like a man in a bad dream, trying to reach a
goal that constantly eluded him.
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