So that was it! Steptoe had been treacherous. Letty would never believe in anyone again. She could make these reflections hurriedly because the voice at the telephone was silent.
“Oh!”
It was the same exclamation as that of Barbara Walbrook, but in another tone—a tone of distress, sharp, sympathetic. Pulling the dressing gown about her, frightened, tense, Letty knew that something had gone wrong.
“Oh! Oh!... last night, did you say?... early this morning....”
Letty crept to where her hostess was seated at the telephone. “What is it?”
But Miss Towell either didn’t hear the question or was too absorbed to answer it. “Oh, ’Enery, try to 323 remember that God is his life—that there can be no death to be afraid of when––”
Letty snatched the receiver from the other woman’s hands, and fell on her knees beside the little table. “Oh, what is it? What is it? It’s me; Letty! Something’s happened. I’ve got to know.”
Amazed and awed by the force of this intrusion Miss Towell stood up, and moved a little back.
Over the wire Steptoe’s voice sounded to Letty like the ghost of his voice, broken, dead.
“I think if I was madam I’d come back.”