"The physicians will soon be here. I heard the telephone going a few minutes ago. When they have pronounced the old woman dead we will give the—the lady you mention an opportunity to explain herself."
Explain herself, she! Simple expectation. Unconsciously I shook my head.
"It is the least we can do," he gently persisted. "Come, we must not be seen with our heads together—not yet. I am sorry that we two were found more or less dressed at the time of the alarm. It may cause comment."
"She was dressed, too," I murmured, as much to myself as to him.
"Unfortunately, yes," was the muttered reply, with which he drew off and hastened into the hall, where the now thoroughly-aroused household stood in a great group about the excited hostess.
Mrs. Armstrong was not the woman for an emergency. With streaming hair and tightly-clutched kimono, she was gesticulating wildly and bemoaning the break in the festivities which this event must necessarily cause. As Sinclair approached, she turned her tirade on him, and as all stood still to listen and add such words of sympathy or disappointment as suggested themselves in the excitement of the moment, I had an opportunity to note that neither of the two girls most interested was within sight. This troubled me. Drawing up to the outside of the circle, I asked Beaton, who was nearest to me, if he knew how Miss Camerden was.
"Better, I hear. Poor girl, it was a great shock to her."
I ventured nothing more. The conventionality of his tone was not to be mistaken. Our conversation on the veranda was to be ignored. I did not know whether to feel relief at this or an added distress. I was in a whirl of emotion which robbed me of all discrimination. As I realized my own condition, I concluded that my wisest move would be to withdraw myself for a time from every eye. Accordingly, and at the risk of offending more than one pretty girl who still had something to say concerning this terrible mischance, I slid away to my room, happy to escape the murmurs and snatches of talk rising on every side. One bitter speech, uttered by I do not know whom, rang in my ears and made all thinking unendurable. It was this:
"Poor woman! she was angry once too often. I heard her scolding Dorothy again after she went to her room. That is why Dorothy is so overcome. She says it was the violence of her aunt's rage which killed her,—a rage of which she unfortunately was the cause."
So there were words again between these two after the door closed upon them for the night! Was this what we heard just before that scream went up? It would seem so. Thereupon, quite against my will, I found myself thinking of Dorothy's changed position before the world. Only yesterday a dependent slave; to-day, the owner of millions. Gilbertine would have her share, a large one, but there was enough to make them both wealthy. Intolerable thought! Would that no money had been involved! I hated to think of those diamonds and—