Good gracious! where can she have gone to? There is no exit from this room save through the next, where she and Rylton have been sitting—except by the chimney, or through one of the windows. For one awful moment it occurs to Miss Knollys that Tita might have flung herself out of a window.
She glances hurriedly to the window nearest her, and then sees something that makes her heart stand still.
Are those Tita's heels?
Margaret's mind is full of suicidal fears. She steps cautiously towards the open window—the window through which Tita's body is now flung. Tita's feet alone are in the room! Tita herself is suspended between heaven and earth, like Mahomet's coffin!
"Tita! what are you doing?" cries Margaret, laying a sudden hand upon the white sash that is encircling Lady Rylton's waist.
At this, the latter scrambles back into a more respectable position, and stares at Margaret with angry, shamed eyes, and cheeks like a "red, red rose."
"Good gracious!" says she. "Why, you very nearly threw me out of the window."
Now, this is so manifestly unfair that Margaret feels resentment. What had her action been? She had dragged Tita backwards into the room; she had not pushed her out, as the latter seemed to suggest.
"I quite thought you were trying to throw yourself out of the window," says Margaret, with emphasis. "What have you been doing?"
"Nothing—nothing," declares Tita airily, hurriedly. "The day is so lovely—you remember we were talking about it a while ago. I was—er—listening to the birds."