The thought of Charles Houseman came to her, but she disowned it with a listless sort of resentment. She felt, somehow, that he had failed her. He had not been there when she needed him. He had not taken his part in this ghastly and unforgetable sight.
There was a light in Mrs. Royce’s front parlor. Perhaps he was in there, waiting for her, cheerful and cool, a thousand miles away from the nightmare world in which she had been moving. She did not want to see him or speak to him just now. He hadn’t seen. He wouldn’t understand.
Captain Grey opened the gate, and they went up the flagged walk. Before they had mounted the veranda steps, the front door was flung wide, and Mrs. Royce appeared.
“Oh, my goodness!” she cried. “I thought you’d never come!”
Her tone and her manner were so strange that they both stopped and stared at her.
“Oh, my goodness!” she cried again. “Oh, do come in! I don’t know what to do with her, I’m sure!”
“Who?” asked Lexy.
“Poor Mis’ Quelton. There she is, lyin’ upstairs—”
“Mrs. Quelton?”
“Joe, he brought her in his taxi, jest a little while after you’d gone.”