A moment Rosamond stared with blazing eyes; then she struck at the woman with both hands.
"How dare you!" she cried hoarsely. "How dare you! Out of my sight! I want none of your God who can make such cruel laws, none of your heaven that can hold such coldness. Oh, Harry, Harry, Harry! Somewhere you are. Hear me—come to me. Come!"
Fiercely, as if madness were indeed upon her, she flung her glance from one to the other of the helpless watchers.
"I must see him! Send old Mary away, she is keeping him from me. Send her away. Harry, Harry, come to me. Tell me you forgive me... Jani, your people can raise the dead, they say. Call him back to me. By your gods or your devils call his spirit to me. Jani, will you let your child die and not help her?"
The fluent Hindustani of her childhood rushed back to her lips. Aspasia, after having huddled old Mary out of sight, stood, feeling again as if one hideous dream had been succeeded by another still more hideous; feeling, while the unknown cry rang out, and the dear voice grew hoarse and feeble, more abjectly useless herself than in her teeming energy she could ever have thought possible. All at once the ayah, who had listened at first bewildered, then with an air of darkling attention, suddenly interrupted the failing accents of her mistress by a few harsh words.
Rosamond fell back upon her pillows with a sigh of exhaustion. The Hindoo turned, and went stealthily from the room, and Aspasia sank into a chair; her limbs would no longer support her.
Rosamond lay very still, almost like death, the girl thought, her eyelids only half closed over her dulled eyes. Never had minutes seemed so interminable; never silence so charged with boding sounds, as during this span of expectation. Never would Aspasia know whether it were hours or minutes that she sat, expecting she knew not what.
At length the shuffling tread of the ayah sounded without the door, and Jani entered. She had thrown a long white veil over her head, and between her hands she held the chafing-dish in which she was wont to cook her own food. The glimmer of the hot charcoal shone fitfully on her dark intent face. A thrill of superstitious terror ran through Aspasia.
"Jani," she cried, catching at the woman's veil, "what are you going to do?" She thought the black eyes were lit with an evil spark as they looked back at her:
"Do my Missie Sahib's will," whispered Jani.