“Did she faint?”
“No, that is, she did not entirely lose consciousness, though greatly agitated. And then, soon, the butler and Miller, Mr. Stannard’s valet, came in, and after that Barry came and—and everything seemed to happen at once. Doctor Keith came——”
“One moment, Mrs. Faulkner, you are getting ahead of your story. What about the words uttered by Mr. Stannard before he died?”
“They were so inarticulate as to be unintelligible.”
“You swear this?”
“I do. If he said ‘Joyce’ or ‘Natalie,’ it is not at all strange, considering that those two women were in his sight. But I repeat that he did not say them in a connected sentence, nor did he himself mean any real statement. It was the unconscious speech of a dying man. In another instant he was gone.”
Though outwardly calm, Beatrice Faulkner’s voice trembled, and was so low as to be scarcely audible. But she stood her ground bravely, and her eyes met Barry’s for a moment, in the briefest glance of understanding and approval.
“Hum,” commented the astute Roberts to his favourite confidant, himself, “the Barry person is in love with the dolly-baby girl, and the queenly lady is his friend, and she’s helping him out. She isn’t telling all she knows, or if she is, she’s colouring it to save the implicated ladies.”
“What is your position in this house, Mrs. Faulkner?”
The faintest gleam of amusement passed over the white face. It was almost as if he thought her a housekeeper or governess.