"I had a letter. She will come early to-morrow morning—I mean this morning," Sophy corrected herself, looking at the bone-white dawn that showed in streaks through the heavy somnolence of the wrapt trees. Gerald had opened the shutters fully an hour ago, looking for the daybreak.
"Good!" said Bellamy. He glanced at the worn faces about him. "Now I am going to take a doctor's privilege and prescribe," he added, trying to assume a lighter tone. "I advise your ladyship, and every one, to come down to the dining-room and have coffee and something more solid. A night like this is terribly exhausting. We shall need all our strength to meet the next twenty-four hours."
XXIX
Anne Harding arrived at ten o'clock. Bellamy asked Sophy to explain the situation to the nurse while she changed into her uniform. There was no time to lose. He would see her himself as soon as she had dressed.
Bellamy had wanted a locksmith sent for to pick the lock of Chesney's door while he slept, but Lady Wychcote would not have this. She was determined that things should wait as they were for Nurse Harding's arrival.
"She may want to make him open the door himself—for the moral effect of it," she said, with real acumen.
"Awfully keen old lady she is, my word!" Anne had exclaimed, when Sophy told her this. "Just what I do want!"
"But, Nurse, do you think he will open that door for any one?" Sophy had asked, wondering.
"I know how to make him—never you fear," Anne had replied crisply. "We'll have to wait a bit—for him to sober up, you know," she added, with her usual bluntness.