But his heart was
burning with pain and with guilt. He had left the sickle there lying on
the edge of the grass, and so his first-born child whom he loved so
dearly had come to hurt. But then it was an accident--it was an accident.
Why should he feel guilty? It would probably be nothing, better in two or
three days. Why take it to heart, why worry? He put it aside.
The child lay on the bed in her little summer frock, her face very white
now after the shock, Nurse had come carrying the youngest child: and
little Annabel stood holding her skirt. Winifred, terribly serious and
wooden-seeming, was bending over the knee, from which she had taken his
blood-soaked handkerchief. Egbert bent forward, too, keeping more
_sangfroid_ in his face than in his heart. Winifred went all of a lump of
seriousness, so he had to keep some reserve. The child moaned and
whimpered.
The knee was still bleeding profusely--it was a deep cut right in the
joint.
'You'd better go for the doctor, Egbert,' said Winifred bitterly.
'Oh, no! Oh, no!' cried Joyce in a panic.
'Joyce, my darling, don't cry!' said Winifred, suddenly catching the
little girl to her breast in a strange tragic anguish, the _Mater
Dolorata_. Even the child was frightened into silence. Egbert looked at
the tragic figure of his wife with the child at her breast, and turned
away. Only Annabel started suddenly to cry: 'Joycey, Joycey, don't have
your leg bleeding!'
Egbert rode four miles to the village for the doctor.
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