Carteret had begun to pound impatiently
upon the door, when it was cautiously opened by Miss Pemberton, who was
pale, and trembled with excitement.
"Where is Olivia?" asked the major.
"She is upstairs, with Dodie and Mrs. Albright's hospital nurse. Dodie
has the croup. Virgie ran away after the riot broke out. Sister Olivia
had sent for Mammy Jane, but she did not come. Mrs. Albright let her
white nurse come over."
"I'll go up at once," said the major anxiously. "Wait for me,
Ellis,--I'll be down in a few minutes."
"Oh, Mr. Ellis," exclaimed Clara, coming toward him with both hands
extended, "can nothing be done to stop this terrible affair?"
"I wish I could do something," he murmured fervently, taking both her
trembling hands in his own broad palms, where they rested with a
surrendering trustfulness which he has never since had occasion to
doubt. "It has gone too far, already, and the end, I fear, is not yet;
but it cannot grow much worse." The editor hurried upstairs. Mrs.
Carteret, wearing a worried and haggard look, met him at the threshold
of the nursery.
"Dodie is ill," she said. "At three o'clock, when the trouble began, I
was over at Mrs. Albright's,--I had left Virgie with the baby. When I
came back, she and all the other servants had gone. They had heard that
the white people were going to kill all the negroes, and fled to seek
safety. I found Dodie lying in a draught, before an open window, gasping
for breath. I ran back to Mrs.
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