When she had spoken, Baby had a vision so swift that she had hardly time to seize it, of Muhammed's eyes lightening upon her with an extraordinary illumination. The next instant he had dropped his lids. Then he turned and, running, left her; and she heard the crazy boards creak, the stairs groan under his flying unshod feet.
Utter chaos possessed her thoughts as she turned the handle of the locked door and gently knocked, calling upon Jani; the fantastic terrors of her inexplicable experience, and the sounds of Rosamond's moans and sobs within driving her to urgency. As still in a sort of nightmare she found herself repeating her own phrase to the Pathan, and an odd speech of her aunt's, as if in answer to it: "She is mourning for her dead husband.... He is not really dead, Baby...."
Here an idea so extraordinary, so utterly impossible, suddenly tapped at her brain that, added to all the rest, a new fear of her own self came upon her.
"I think I am going mad, too," said the poor child to herself. "Jani, Jani," she cried louder, "let me in!"
And Jani, hearing, did so—this time, it seemed, with alacrity.
The candles on Lady Gerardine's dressing-table had been lit, and the portrait on the panel was in full illumination.
Rosamond was crouching in bed, her head on her knees, her hair in long strands about her. She did not move upon Aspasia's entrance; she did not seem to have heard it. Now and again a moan escaped her.
"Why did you not call me?" cried the girl, turning angrily upon Jani.
The ayah shook her head, her face was wrinkled into a thousand lines of dismay. She made a helpless gesture with both hands.
"Has she been like that all night?" asked Aspasia.