“Don’t talk to me, Eleanor! You drive me crazy!”
Offended, and a little frightened at the girl’s vehemence, the older woman ceased all attempts at conversation, and busied herself about the rooms, with those futile, nervous little motions that most women indulge in under stress of great excitement.
“I think, Avice, dear, you ought to try to eat some dinner,” she suggested. “Shall we go out together?”
But Avice only looked at her in dumb reproach, and closed her eyes as if to dismiss the subject.
Mrs. Black went into the dining-room alone.
“There has been an accident, Stryker,” she said to the butler, thinking it unwise to say more at the present. “They will bring Mr. Trowbridge home after a time. Meantime, say nothing to the other servants, and give me my dinner, for I feel I must try to eat something.”
Mrs. Black’s face was inscrutable as she sat at the well-appointed table. She ate a little of the dishes Stryker brought, but her thoughts were evidently far away. She frowned now and then, and once she smiled, but mostly she seemed in a brown study, and as if she had weighty affairs on her mind. Not a tear did she shed, nor did she look bowed with sorrow; indeed, her fine, well-poised head held itself a little higher than usual as she gave low-voiced orders to the butler now and then.
She returned to the drawing-room and the weary hours dragged by. Occasionally the two women spoke to each other, but only of trivialities, or necessary details of arrangement. No word of sympathy or common grief passed between them.
At last they heard steps outside, and they knew Rowland Trowbridge was being brought into his house for the last time.
Judge Hoyt came in first and kept the two women in the drawing-room while the bearers took their tragic burden up to Mr. Trowbridge’s own room. Shortly afterward Doctor Fulton came down.