She
nodded, and put her finger to her lips as a sign that he must be
cautious. She had often, in the long ago, seen her mother signing thus
to an imaginary face at the window--the face of the man who never
came.
Tommy went into the house, and she was so pleased to see him that she
quite simpered. He put his arms round her, and she lay there with a
little giggle of contentment. She was in a plot of heat.
"Grizel! Oh, my God!" he said, "why do you look at me in that way?"
She passed her hand across her eyes, like one trying to think.
"I woke up," she said at last. Corp appeared at the window now, and
she pointed to him in terror. Thus had she seen her mother point, in
the long ago, at faces that came there to frighten her.
"Grizel," Tommy entreated her, "you know who I am, don't you?"
She said his name at once, but her eyes were on the window. "They want
to take me away," she whispered.
"But you must come away, Grizel. You must come home."
"This is home," she said. "It is sweet."
After much coaxing, he prevailed upon her to leave. With his arm round
her, and a terrible woe on his face, he took her to the doctor's
house. She had her hands over her ears all the way.
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