"Did you?" said he. "I heard nothing; but there certainly is a smoke," and he still smiled.
"What are you sitting there for, Mr. Thwaite?" asked Mrs. Richards.
"You ain't no business to sit there, Mr. Thwaite," said Sarah.
"You've been and done something to the Countess," said Mrs. Richards.
"The Countess is all right. I'm going up-stairs to see Lady Anna;—that's all. But I've hurt myself a little. I'm bad in my left shoulder, and I sat down just to get a rest." As he spoke he was still smiling.
Then the woman looked at him and saw that he was very pale. At that instant he was in great pain, though he felt that as the sense of intense sickness was leaving him he would be able to go up-stairs and say a word or two to his sweetheart, should he find her. "You ain't just as you ought to be, Mr. Thwaite," said Mrs. Richards. He was very haggard, and perspiration was on his brow, and she thought that he had been drinking.
"I am well enough," said he rising,—"only that I am much troubled by a hurt in my arm. At any rate I will go up-stairs." Then he mounted slowly, leaving the two women standing in the passage.
Mrs. Richards gently opened the parlour door, and entered the room, which was still reeking with smoke and the smell of the powder, and there she found the Countess seated at the old desk, but with her body and face turned round towards the door. "Is anything the matter, my lady?" asked the woman.
"Where has he gone?"
"Mr. Thwaite has just stepped up-stairs,—this moment. He was very queer like, my lady."