A few tears of exhaustion rolled down her little white face as she spoke, but Lily saw that she had literally cried until she could cry no more.
"Are you all going away for a little while?" she said hesitatingly. "Your aunt said something about it."
"They want us to go back to Ireland with them, but Mother thinks they couldn't really afford three visitors, and such a long journey wouldn't be worth while for less than a month."
"Cousin Ethel wouldn't go alone, or perhaps with just Janet, and let you come to me—or somewhere else, of course, if you'd rather?"
"Oh!" cried Sylvia, "we must all keep together now that there are only the three of us left."
Lily, as she left the house, violently disputed this sentiment within herself. The longer the three desolate women remained together, just so much the longer would they react upon one another emotionally. Lily wondered whether she was herself heartless in so thinking. It made her seriously uneasy to know that Philip Stellenthorpe would most certainly consider her to be so.
She felt strangely rebellious, and at the same time ashamed of it.
"Well," said Nicholas, "I'm extremely thankful it's over. I was very much afraid there was going to be an accident, weren't you?"
"What—when?"
"Didn't you notice? I suppose your little head was somewhere in the clouds again. One of the bearers wasn't fit for the job—quite unmistakably intoxicated. That's the worst of having country labourers—one can't ever be quite sure. I was on thorns, I can tell you."