When he was gone Nina shut herself up in what Kneedrock had chosen to call his "office." In her tense state the chatter of those in the little drawing-room was well-nigh unbearable.
The duke especially tortured her nerves to snapping. The tears of the duchess were contagious. And, despite the occasion, Lady Bellingdown and her lord were constantly bickering.
The mangled arm of poor Nibbetts had been amputated, of course. That was imperative. And the shock of the operation, following the shock of the accident, and coupled with an extraordinary loss of blood, had proved too much for a constitution already depleted.
From the first the surgeons and doctors had given them little hope. He had barely one chance in a hundred, they said; and recovery would be little short of a miracle. Since early morning he had been sinking despite every effort to rally his forces.
It was possible that before death came there would be a faint flare of energy, perhaps a brief moment of consciousness; but the chances favored a continuous coma.
"Even if the earl should come now," mused Nina, "I fear he will be too late. But it was my duty to send; and I've done it."
She moved restlessly about the little room. She sat on one chair and then on another. She stood for a time peering out between the drawn curtains. She picked up books, turned the pages, read lines, without understanding.
After a little she paused beside a writing-table that occupied a corner and began handling the moveable things that rested upon it—a small, framed calendar, certain dates on which she found ringed with black ink and others with red; a clock, which had stopped at twenty-two minutes to four, a box of postage stamps, pens, quills, a silver knife.
Thrust into a corner of the green blotting-pad was a sealed and stamped letter, ready for the post. Absently, without motive, she extracted it and glanced at the superscription.
The hand was his, Nibbetts's, and the fact startled and chilled her. In all probability he would never write again. And then something else caught her consciousness: "Dundee, Scotland." And at the same instant: "Miss Agnes Scripps."