she caught his sleeve.

"Where _have_ you been?" she said, with a queer little excited hitch in
her voice. "I've been almost wild, waiting for you. Mother's headache
is horribly worse; she's gone to bed. A letter came this morning, I
don't know what, but I think it has something to do with her being so
ill. She simply cries and cries--a frightening sort of crying--and says,
'I can't--can't!' and wants Father to tell her what to do."

They were in the hall by this time.

"Wants _Father_!" Ken said gravely. "Have you got the doctor, Phil?"

"Not yet; I wanted to ask you."

"Get him--quick."

Ken ran upstairs. Halfway, he tumbled over something crouched beside the
banisters. It was Kirk, quite wretched. He caught Ken's ankle.

"Mother's crying," he said; "I can hear her. Oh, _do_ something, Ken!"

"I'm going to," said his brother. "Don't sit here in the dark and make
yourself miserable."

He recollected that the landing was no darker for Kirk than any other
place, and added: "You're apt to be stepped on here--I nearly smashed
you. Hop along and tell Maggie that I'm as hungry as an ostrich." But
however hungry Ken may have been as he trudged home from the docks, he
was not so now. A cold terror seized him as he leaned above his mother,