“I sent them to sleep in the staff-dormitories. I said you wished it,” answered Rosie, smiling.
“But why should I wish it?”
“I don’t know,” said Rosie. “When they asked me that, I told them I didn’t know,” she smiled again faintly. “But Mr. Jetsam will explain it all to you. I—I tried to help him, and I have succeeded—I think.”
During this conversation, Juliette, with that direct candour which frequently distinguishes women in a crisis, had gone straight to Josephus Ilam and seized his hand. She was assuring herself that he was not hurt, when Mrs. Ilam once more gave a sign with her eyelids. Carpentaria resumed his position as helper.
“It was because I loved him,” Carpentaria spelt out for her, “that I tried to kill you—twice.”
Carpentaria fell back. Then he regained his self-command and, pushing his fingers through his red-gold hair, he asked monosyllabically, “Why?”
And then he interpreted for her the answer to his own question.
“You worried Josephus. He wanted to get rid of you.”
Josephus disengaged his hands from those of Juliette.
“Mother!” he moaned sadly, and then added, “She is mad!”