"Oh, I can guess!"
"I was only answering a number of questions he asked me. It's very unkind not to answer people's questions!"
"Most decidedly! I quite agree with you!" laughed Carmel.
The letters were posted in Glazebrook that evening by the factotum Jones, and Dulcie, though her thoughts might possibly follow the particular heavy envelope addressed to Montalesso, dismissed her other items of correspondence completely from her mind. She was taking a run round the garden the next morning at eleven o'clock "break," when to her immense surprise she heard a trotting of horse's hoofs on the drive, and who should appear but Everard, riding Rajah. The rules at Chilcombe Hall were strict. No visits were allowed, even from brothers, without special permission from Miss Walters. Hitherto Everard had come over only by express invitation from the head-mistress, and this had been given sparingly, at discreet intervals, and always for the afternoon. Surely some most unusual circumstance must have brought him to school at the early hour of eleven in the morning? Dulcie flew across the lawn, calling his name. At the sight of his sister Everard dismounted, and greeted her eagerly.
"Hello! How are you? How's Carmel?" he began. "I say, you know, this has been a shocking business! You look better than I expected" (scanning her face narrowly). "It's a mercy you aren't all under the daisies! Is Carmel really lame? What about those fits? I came directly I read your letter. A specialist must be sent for at once! I can't understand Miss Walters taking it so lightly. We ought to have been told at once, directly it happened."
As Everard poured forth these remarks, Dulcie's expression underwent several quick changes, and passed from astonishment to sudden comprehension and mirth.
"We're better, thanks!" she choked. "And Carmel can hobble about quite well on her crutches, and her face isn't very black now, not like it was at first, though of course she still has the fits pretty regularly, and the Doctor says——"
But at that moment her mendacious statement was contradicted by Carmel herself, who came running over the lawn with an agility that put crutches out of all question, and a complexion that was certainly in no way spoilt.
It was Everard's turn to look amazed. He glanced in much perplexity from his cousin, radiant and apparently in the best of health, to his sister, who was almost speechless with laughter.
"You never actually believed my letter about the rat poison?" exploded Dulcie. "I explained that it was written for our literary evening. I told you, Everard, I only sent it on for you to read because it sounded so funny, and I was rather proud of it!"