"Tell the messenger I will be here," she said; and she sat then for a long time, staring in front of her.
Then a thought came to her. Whether she were well enough or no she must go and question Jenny. So, to the despair of her maid, she wrapped herself in furs and started. She felt extremely faint when she got into the air, but her will pulled her through, and when she got there the little servant put her doubts at rest.
Yes, a very tall, handsome gentleman had come a few minutes after herself, and she had taken him up, thinking he was the doctor.
"Why, missus," she said, "he couldn't have stayed a minute. He come away while the Count was playin' his fiddle."
So this was how it was! Her thoughts were all in a maze: she could not reason. And when she got back to the Park Lane house she felt too feeble to go any further, even to the lift.
Her maid came and took her furs from her, and she lay on the library sofa, after Henriette had persuaded her to have a little chicken broth; and then she fell into a doze, and was awakened only by the sound of the electric bell. She knew it was her husband coming, and sat up, with a wildly beating heart. Her trembling limbs would not support her as she rose for his entrance, and she held on by the back of a chair.
And, grave and pale with the torture he had been through, Tristram came into the room.
CHAPTER XLI
He stopped dead short when he saw her so white and fragile looking. Then he exclaimed, "Zara—you have been ill!"