"Ah! the wet night, I suppose."
"Just so, my lady," composedly, and with another deep curtsey.
Lady Baltimore having given Mrs. Connolly into the care of the housekeeper, who is an old friend of hers, leads Joyce upstairs.
"You are not angry with me?" says Joyce, turning on the threshold of her room.
"With you, my dear child? No, indeed. With Norman, very! He should have turned back the moment he saw the first symptom of a storm. A short wetting would have done neither of you any harm."
"There was no warning; the storm was on us almost immediately, and we were then very close to Falling."
"Then, having placed you once safely in Mrs. Connolly's care, he should have returned himself, at all hazards."
"It rained very hard," says Joyce in a cold, clear tone. Her eyes are on the ground. She is compelling herself to be strictly just to Beauclerk, but the effort is too much for her. She fails to do it naturally, and so gives a false impression to her listener. Lady Baltimore casts a quick glance at her.
"Rain, what is rain?" says she.
"There was storm, too, a violent storm; you must have felt it here."