Her eyes turned upon him as if she were bereft of the power of understanding.
“Mr. Sheridan means, ma’am,” cried the equerry impatiently, “how did the good preacher bear the awful revelation? Did you not yourself say that at four o’clock—four, wasn’t it, Sherry?—the great Falcon mystery ceased to exist.”
“You are right, sir,” said Fair Fatality. “When I returned from rehearsal this afternoon I found—I saw—I knew—there was no secret between us any more! You want to know so much about me, all of you.” Her voice rose suddenly and piercingly. “Your curiosity shall be gratified to the end.”
She moved away from Pamela with a steady step, flung open the folding doors, and pointed into the room revealed with a single magnificent gesture.
Grasping the elbows of his chair, fuddled, inquisitive, the Prince of Wales lifted himself to stare. Mr. Sheridan took two strides and brought himself up with an ejaculation. And “Damn me!” cried the equerry, in accents of anger and fear. “This is a dashed low trick!”
There was no need for anyone to cast a second glance into that room. The lights and the flowers, the rigid figure on the bed, covered with a white sheet, told their own story. The genial party were looking upon death.
“Oh, you poor creature! You poor, unhappy dear!” cried Pamela Pounce, bursting into hot tears, and catching the Falcon to her heart.
The preacher’s wife abandoned herself to the embrace; but only for the span of a moment, not for the relief of tears, not for the comfort of another woman’s tenderness, but because, just for that little while, every power fell into suspense. When she disengaged herself they were alone with the dead. Royalty and its boon companions had seized the opportunity to retire from a scene so discomforting.
Felicity turned an abstracted gaze into the dining-room; it was clear to Pamela that her visitors, Royalty and all, were of less consequence in her mind than the stray moth that fluttered round the candles.
“Will you look at him?” said the widow.