What a beautiful thing it
was to go to sleep!
And then she was disturbed-started out of the divine doze stealing
upon her-by a shrill prolonged wailing shriek!
It came from the Night Nursery and at the moment it seemed almost
worse than anything which had occurred all through the day. It
brought everything back so hideously. She had of course forgotten
Robin again-and it was Robin! And Louisa had gone away with
Edward. She had perhaps put the child to sleep discreetly before
she went. And now she had wakened and was screaming. Feather had
heard that she was a child with a temper but by fair means or foul
Louisa had somehow managed to prevent her from being a nuisance.
The shrieks shocked her into sitting upright in bed. Their
shrillness tearing through the utter soundlessness of the empty
house brought back all her terrors and set her heart beating at
a gallop.
"I--I WON'T!" she protested, fairly with chattering teeth. "I won't!
I WON'T!"
She had never done anything for the child since its birth, she did
not know how to do anything, she had not wanted to know. To reach
her now she would be obliged to go out in the dark-the gas-jet
she would have to light was actually close to the outer door of
Robert's bedroom--THE room! If she did not die of panic while she
was trying to light it she would have to make her way almost in
the dark up the steep crooked little staircase which led to the
nurseries.
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