The drawing-room seems a bower of repose after the turmoil of the late feast, and besides, it cannot be long now before she—they—return. That is if they—she—return at all! He has, indeed, ample time given him to imagine this last horrible possibility as not only a probability, but a certainty, before the sound of coming footsteps up the stairs and the frou-frou of pretty frocks tells him his doubts were harmless. Involuntarily he rises from his chair and straightens himself, out of the rather forlorn position into which he has fallen, and fixes his eyes immovably upon the door. Are there two of them?
That is beyond doubt. It is only mad people who chatter to themselves, and certainly Mrs. Monkton is not mad.
Barbara has indeed raised her voice a little more than ordinary, and has addressed Joyce by her name on her hurried way up the staircase and across the cushioned recess outside the door. Now she throws open the door and enters, radiant, if a little nervous.
"Here we are," she says, very pleasantly, and with all the put-on manner of one who has made up her mind to be extremely joyous under distinct difficulties. "You are still here, then, and alone. They didn't murder you. Joyce and I had our misgivings all along. Ah, I forgot, you haven't seen Joyce until now."
"How d'ye do?" says Miss Kavanagh, holding out her hand to him, with a calm as perfect as her smile.
"I do hope they were good," goes on Mrs. Monkton, her nervousness rather increasing.
"You know I have always said they were the best children in the world."
"Ah! said, said," repeats Mrs. Monkton, who now seems grateful for the chance of saying anything. What is the meaning of Joyce's sudden amiability—and is it amiability, or——
"It is true one can say almost anything," says Joyce, quite pleasantly. She nods her head prettily at Dysart. "There is no law to prevent them. Barbara thinks you are not sincere. She is not fair to you. You always do mean what you say, don't you?"
But for the smile that accompanies these words Dysart would have felt his doom sealed. But could she mean a stab so cruel, so direct, and still look kind?