Camilla stumbled in her haste to get out of the room, and almost immediately she was back again.
"I'm sorry," she said indistinctly, nervously; "but I think the children had better not stop. Cuthbert's mother is dead. She died an hour ago. Try not to let them be disappointed, Caroline. Tell them they shall see me very soon, perhaps to-morrow. It seems awfully unkind to send them away, poor little souls, but he is in a terrible state. I must be with him. It would be so miserable for the children here."
Indeed the children seemed glad to go. They kissed their mother, who held them to her in a passionate, nervous kind of way, and then let Dennis put on their hats, and went away with Caroline, dancing as they went.
Outside in the hot sunshine they clamoured for food.
"I can smell beef," said Betty, wrinkling up her pretty nose. "I thought we was going to have a lovely dinner, and we didn't have none. Oh, Caroline, I am so hungry."
And Baby chimed in with the same remark.
Caroline hoisted them both into a cab, and they drove to the station. There she regaled them with lunch, and by the middle of the afternoon they were back at Yelverton.
CHAPTER XVII
It was of course impossible for Haverford to leave London immediately after his mother's funeral. He had to charge himself with the arrangements of her affairs, a matter in which his half-brother should have taken his share. But Cuthbert Baynhurst had hastened away as quickly as he could go.