CHAPTER XXI. THE LAST ACT.
Just as another woman sleeps.
D. G. Rossetti.
It was not till a week or two later that Gertrude brought herself to tell Lucy what had happened during her absence. It was a bleak afternoon in the beginning of December; in the next room lay Phyllis, cold and stiff and silent for ever; and Lucy was drearily searching in a cupboard for certain mourning garments which hung there. But suddenly, from the darkness of the lowest shelf, something shone up at her, a white, shimmering object, lying coiled there like a snake.
It was Phyllis's splendid satin gown, which Gertrude had flung there on the fateful night, and, from sheer repugnance, had never disturbed.
"But you must send it back," Lucy said, when in a few broken words her sister had explained its presence in the cupboard.
Lucy was very pale and very serious. She gathered up the satin gown, which nothing could have induced Gertrude to touch, folded it neatly, and began looking about for brown paper in which to enclose it.