"Oh, dear," cried Baby, "what shall I do, what shall I do!"
She thought of summoning Major Bethune to her aid; but shrank, with the repugnance of some unformed womanly reticence.
"I must get in," she said to herself, desperately; and flung all her young vigour against the door. To her joy, the socket of the bolt yielded with unexpected ease. She fell almost headlong into the room, and then stood aghast. There lay Lady Gerardine, prone on the floor, among the strewn papers, the flickering candle by her side.
For a second the girl's heart stopped beating. The next moment she could have cried aloud with joy. Rosamond had not even fainted; but, as she raised herself and Baby saw the face that was turned to her, the girl realised that here was hardly an occasion for thanksgiving; and her own lips, trembling upon a tremendous announcement, were struck silent.
"Oh, my poor darling!" cried she, catching the stricken woman in her arms, "what is it?"
With a moan, as of physical pain, Rosamond's head dropped on her niece's shoulder.
"You're cold, you're worn out," said the girl. "Those dreadful letters, and this place like an ice-house! Aunt Rosamond, darling——" She chafed the cold hands vigorously as she spoke. "You must be starved, too. Oh, and I don't know how to tell you! Let me bring you down to your own room—there's tea waiting for you, and such a fire! Aunt Rosamond, you must rouse yourself. Here, I'll put these papers by."
The one thing that could stir Rosamond from her torpor of misery was this.
"Don't touch them," she said. Her toneless voice seemed to come from depths far distant. She laid her wasted hands over the scattered sheets, drawing them together to her bosom; and then, on her knees, fell again into the former state of oblivion of all but her absorbing pain.
Frenzied with impatience and the urgency for action, Baby now blurted out the news which the sight of Lady Gerardine's drawn countenance caused her to withhold: