Their Child — Key Ideas to Explore

, for he whistled, and one or two men who were skulking about joined us. I was so mad that a moment more and I should have had my hands about his windpipe, no matter whether they cut me into mince-meat the next minute. Do you know what it is to feel like doing murder? It’s the drunkest kind of feeling you can have--you don’t know yourself at all--”

“I should like to try that!” sighed Mrs. Bellflower.

At this point there seemed to come somewhere from the rooms above a frightened cry.

“Mercy!” exclaimed the young woman, “what’s that?”

Mrs. Simmons sprang up, and stood listening. Then they could all hear distinctly in a woman’s voice:

“Oh, oh! He has killed me! Oh, oh!” Then silence.

Before the last groans reached their ears Mrs. Simmons had darted into the dark drawing-room, calling as she sped, “Oscar! my little Oscar!”

On the terrace they could hear again more faintly the “Oh, oh, oh!” from above.

“And what _did_ happen to your old Don?” Mrs. Bellflower asked with a show of unconcern.

“Why, nothing much. I--”

“Oh, Olaf! Come, Olaf!”

It was Mrs. Simmons’s voice this time. Simmons bounded from the terrace, calling:

“Yes, Evelyn! Coming, Evelyn!”

The others jumped from their chairs.

“Come, Dr. Vessinger!” exclaimed the Magnificent Wreck. “I think it is time you and I and Miss Flower were gone. Where are the horses?”

“Do you think we should leave quite yet?” the doctor asked, somewhat cynically. “It seems to me the story has just begun.”

“Well, you may stay for the end. But I am going!”

Simmons stumbled across the hall and up the dark staircase. The coming storm had suddenly blackened all the house. The open doors of the bedrooms sucked out the swaying air that came in puffs from the windows. In the eastern room, above the terrace where they had been sitting, Simmons found his wife, clasping their child in a hysterical embrace.

“What have you done? My darling--my one--my Oscar!” A dry sob ended the broken exclamations.

They were huddled in a heap upon the floor beside the window. The child’s face had a look of intense wonder, of concentrated thought upon some difficult idea which eluded his baby mind. Across the iron cot at one side of the room was stretched the inert form of the nurse.

“Look at her, Olaf,” said Mrs. Simmons. “He has--cut her--stabbed her with the knife.”

As Simmons approached the bed, he kicked something with his foot. It fell upon the tiled fireplace with the tinkle of steel. The woman on the bed groaned. Simmons turned on the electric light, and hastily examined the nurse.

“She’s not badly hurt, Evelyn. A scratch along the neck. She fainted at the sight of blood, I guess. But what was the knife?”

He picked up the thing from the fireplace and examined it. It was a long, dull, sharp-pointed knife, brought from the kitchen to cut bread with. Along the edge it was faintly daubed with blood. Simmons, still holding it in his hands, stepped to the window. His wife was crouching there, sobbing over the child, whom she held in her arms tightly. Little Oscar’s eyes were fixed upon the thunder-clouds outside. He neither saw nor heard what was passing in the room. The father leaned over and touched his forehead with his hand. The child shrank away.

“You must take him out of here, Evelyn!” he said. “I will look after her.”

“She must have been cutting the bread for his supper, and laid the knife down on the table for a moment. I--I told her never to leave it about. I have been afraid--of something!”

“You have been afraid?” her husband asked quickly. “Why so?”

The boy moved uneasily and turned his head to watch his father.

“What you got my knife for?” he demanded. “Give me my knife!”

“You shall never, never have it again!” his mother moaned, clasping him more tightly.

“Why not?” he asked curiously. “What’s the matter with Dora? Why’s she lying on my bed? Tell her to get up. I am tired. Oscar wants to go to bed.”

His eyelids fell and rose, as though the long search for the mysterious thing in his mind had put him into a doze.

“He does not seem to know what he has done. What is it? Olaf, what is the matter with him?”

“Ssh, hush! Don’t rouse him. Get him to bed. _Don’t_ let him know. I’ll look after Dora--she’s coming around now--and then I’ll call Vessinger, if it is necessary.”