"Yes, but I was too annoyed to feel upset."
"Annoyed?"
"Because uncle has brought it all on himself by carelessness. I do think it's a shame!" She stopped rocking, and sat up, her face full of serious protest.
"He's not the sort of man to take care of himself. He never thought—"
"That's just it. He should have thought, at his age. If he dies, he will practically have killed himself, yes, killed himself. There's no excuse, going out as he did, in spite of all I said. Fancy him coming downstairs last Sunday in the state he was, and then going out on Monday, though it was warm!"
"Well, we'll hope he will get better, and it may be a lesson to him."
"Hark! What was that?" She sprang to her feet apprehensively and listened, her breast pulsing beneath the tight black bodice and her startled inquiring eyes fixed on Richard's. A very faint tinkle came from the rear of the house.
"Perhaps the front-door bell," he suggested.
"Of course. How silly of me! I fancied.... Who can it be at this time?" She went softly into the passage. Richard heard the door open, and then a woman's voice, which somehow seemed familiar,—