Miss Montressor sat profoundly still, but the description her sister had just given of Helen might have been repeated of her--she, too, was as pale as a corpse.
Thornton Carey and Mrs. Jenkins went up-stairs without exchanging a single word. The door of Helen's boudoir opened in the corridor outside her bedroom. Mrs. Jenkins merely threw it open in passing, and the young man went in, while she entered the bedroom by the other door. No sound reached his strained ear for the few minutes during which he waited. At their expiration Helen came in. She wore a white muslin dressing-gown, and her hair was simply brushed behind her ears, and hung loose upon her shoulders. As she came through the door of her bedroom into the boudoir, she faced Thornton Carey directly, and her first glance at him told her that her fears had been prophetic--that he had bad news to tell.