Rosamond’s eyes filled.
“You dear Corinne!” She embraced her warmly. The young girl’s childlike tenderness and confidence were very welcome to her in this hour of condemnation.
“We came on the milk-wagon,” Corinne explained.
“I heard it—more wheels from Roseborough!”
“We had to shout and run across the field to catch it.” She giggled. “Mabel has been all stirred up too. You see we telephoned her, when we thought you were dying, to wire to your sister. Then I told her about Mr. Mills; and what the stupid policeman said about the chauffeur. And she got as excited as I was. Then mamma....” She laughed heartily, then stopped herself with two fingers over her mouth, as if she had been guilty of sad irreverence. “Well, you know mamma. She has such an imagination. And she never can wait to know things. She had you poisoned, murdered, shot, and then she thought you had shot Mr. Mills. And now she says—what do you think?”
“I—I can’t imagine,” Mrs. Mearely stammered. She tried to smile at Corinne, but she was too conscious of Miss Crewe’s hostile gaze and tense mouth. Corinne shrieked joyously at the word.
“Can’t imagine! No. It takes mamma to imagine! She said: ‘No doubt Mrs. Mearely will announce her engagement to Mr. Howard at once. He’ll see his opportunity, and I’ll trust him to make the most of it.’ Now, can you think of anybody but mamma imagining you’d choose the middle of the night to announce an engagement—even if Mr. Howard’s heart wasn’t very much engaged elsewhere.” She glanced archly over her shoulder at her cousin. “But that’s mamma. She imagines wonderfully; but she doesn’t see things that really happen—right under her nose. Where is she?”
“In the dining room, I think.” Rosamond said aloud. Inwardly she was connecting Corinne’s repetitions with Mabel’s appearance, and questioning, in trepidation, just what Miss Crewe had come there to do.
“I’d better go in and get my scolding now,” Corinne rattled on. “Poor mamma. It’s naughty of me to laugh at her. But she was so excited. Of course, you can’t blame mamma for making the most of this. Because it’s the first time anything has really happened in Roseborough.”
She ran to the door then back to her cousin.