"Well then, first lie down, and I will close the curtains and leave you. When I have had time to get to my room, ring for Dixon. Tell her you are ill. When she lets the light in she will see that for herself, and desire her to send me to you."
In another minute the room was once more in darkness, and Mrs. Brookes went down the grand staircase, in order to avoid meeting any of the servants, crossed the hall, and gained her own apartment without being observed. A short time, but long to her impatience, had elapsed, when Mrs. Carruthers's maid knocked at the door, and having received permission to enter, came in with an important face. She delivered the message which Mrs. Brookes was expecting, and added that she had never seen her lady look so ill in all her born days.
"Looks more like a corpse, I do assure you, than like the lady I undressed last night, and circles under her eyes, dreadful. I only hope it ain't typus, for I'm dreadful nervous, not being used to sickness, which indeed I never engaged for. But, if you please, Mrs. Brookes, you was to go to her immediate, and I'm to let Miss Carruthers know as she's to make tea this morning for master, all to their two selves, which he won't like it, I dare say."
Then the talkative damsel went her way to Miss Carruthers's room, and Mrs. Brookes hurried to that of her unhappy mistress. She had again raised herself in the bed, and was looking eagerly towards the door, with hollow haggard eyes, and lips ashy pale, whose trembling she in vain tried to control.
"Lock both doors, Ellen," she said, "and tell me all. Give me the paper; I can read it--I can indeed."
She took it and read it steadily through--read it with the same horrible emotion, a thousand times intensified, which had agitated the faithful servant a few hours previously. Standing by the bedside, Mrs. Brookes gazed upon her pale, convulsed features, as she read, and ever, as she saw the increasing agony which they betrayed, she murmured in accents of earnest entreaty:
"Don't, my dear, for God's sake, don't, not for a moment, don't you believe it. He sold the coat, depend upon it. It looks very bad, very black and bad, but you may be sure there's no truth in it. He sold the coat."
She spoke to deaf ears. When Mrs. Carruthers had read the last line of the account of the inquest on the body of the unknown man, the paper dropped from her hand; she turned upon the old nurse a face which, from that moment, she never had the power to forget, and said:
"He wore it--I saw it on him on Friday," and the next moment slipped down among the pillows, and lay as insensible as a stone.
The old woman gave no alarm, called for no assistance, but silently and steadily applied herself to recalling Mrs. Carruthers to consciousness. She had no fear of interruption. Mr. Carruthers invariably went direct to the breakfast-room on returning from his morning tour of inspection, and Clare would not visit Mrs. Carruthers in her own apartment unasked. So Mrs. Brookes set the windows and doors wide open, and let the sweet morning air fan the insensible face, while she applied all the remedies at hand. At length Mrs. Carruthers sighed deeply, opened her eyes, and raised her hand to her forehead, where it came in contact with the wet hair.