"Runkle's come!"
The woman kneeling half turned her head. A change passed over her rigid countenance.
"Yes; Runkle's here," went on Baby, ruthlessly, raising her voice as if speaking to the deaf. "Uncle Arthur is here; he has come over in a motor—a party of them. Aunt Rosamond, your husband is here."
A long shudder shook the kneeling figure. It was as if life returned to its work; and, returning, trembled in nausea from the task before it. A deep sullen colour began to creep into Lady Gerardine's white cheek. She bent over the gaping box and dropped into it her armful of papers. Then she looked over her shoulder at Aspasia, and drew down the lid.
"My husband! ... My husband is dead," she said.
The girl's blood ran cold. Had the hidden terror taken shape at last? The words were mad enough; yet it was the fierce light in Rosamond's eyes that seemed most to signal danger.
But Aspasia was not timid, and she was not imaginative. And Lady Gerardine's next action, the cry which escaped her lips, at once pierced to every tender helpful instinct of the girl's heart, and banished the paralysing fear.
"Oh, Baby," cried she, springing to her feet and stretching out her arms in hopeless appeal, "what have I done? What is to become of me?"
Once more Baby's arms were about her. Baby, great in the emergency, was pouring forth consolation, expostulation, counsel.
"Look here, Aunt Rosamond; it's really only for a little while; you'll have to show, you know, but they can't stay. Their blessed motor broke down, or something, and they ought to have been here hours ago. Now they can only stop for a cup of tea, if they are to get back to-night. You must just pull yourself together for half an hour—just half an hour, Aunt Rosamond! Leave me to manage. All you've got to do is to smile a bit, and let Runkle do the talking. They want us all to go to Melbury Towers to-morrow, Major Bethune and everybody. That's what they've come over for."