“Indeed, my lady, very little. Everything is much as usual. I am sorry to see your ladyship looking so ill. There do seem to be sickness about the house this morning, to be sure! Master Rickart indeed took to drugging himself last night—though that’s nothing new—and Barnaby sat up with him and lies in a dead sleep on the mat this minute outside the laboratory door just like a dog.”
“Pshaw! Go on.”
“Sir David, he was not himself yesterday, so Mr. Giles tells me; and a bad night he had too. Eh! He paced that platform, my lady, right through from midnight to dawn. Not a wink of sleep did I have either with hearing through the window the sound of his steps and knowing him so tormented, poor gentleman! That was after Mrs. Marvel had left him!”
Lady Lochore struck the table with her beringed hand and started to her feet.
“Mrs. Marvel!”
Margery began to pleat a corner of her apron.
“Yes, my lady. She was up with him there on the tower till nigh midnight.”
“On the tower!”
“Oh, yes, my lady. Not that that’s anything new either. She used to be half the night with him sometimes. But that was before your ladyship came. She stopped going this last month. But last night—eh, my lady, they did talk! I could hear the sound of their voices—she has great power with Sir David—has Mrs. Marvel.”
Lady Lochore sat down again. Her fingers closed on the muslin of the dressing-table. Helplessly and hopelessly her haggard eyes looked forth into a black prospective. Oh, she had failed—failed!