He went upstairs to her. As he came to the bedside she spoke to him in Polish.
"Is it very bad?" he asked.
She looked at him, and oh, the weariness to her, of the effort to understand another language, the weariness of hearing him, attending to him, making out who he was, as he stood there fair-bearded and alien, looking at her. She knew something of him, of his eyes. But she could not grasp him. She closed her eyes.
He turned away, white to the gills.
"It's not so very bad," said the midwife.
He knew he was a strain on his wife. He went down-stairs.
The child glanced up at him, frightened.
"I want my mother," she quavered.
"Ay, but she's badly," he said mildly, unheeding.
She looked at him with lost, frightened eyes.
"Has she got a headache?"
"No—she's going to have a baby."
The child looked round. He was unaware of her. She was alone again in terror.
"I want my mother," came the cry of panic.
"Let Tilly undress you," he said. "You're tired."
There was another silence. Again came the cry of labour.
"I want my mother," rang automatically from the wincing, panic-stricken child, that felt cut off and lost in a horror of desolation.
Tilly came forward, her heart wrung.
"Come an' let me undress her then, pet-lamb," she crooned. "You s'll have your mother in th' mornin', don't you fret, my duckie; never mind, angel."
But Anna stood upon the sofa, her back to the wall.
"I want my mother," she cried, her little face quivering, and the great tears of childish, utter anguish falling.
"She's poorly, my lamb, she's poorly to-night, but she'll be better by mornin'. Oh, don't cry, don't cry, love, she doesn't want you to cry, precious little heart, no, she doesn't."
Tilly took gently hold of the child's skirts. Anna snatched back her dress, and cried, in a little hysteria:
"No, you're not to undress me—I want my mother,"—and her child's face was running with grief and tears, her body shaken.
"Oh, but let Tilly undress you. Let Tilly undress you,
