Juliet drew down the loose night-dress sleeve with a gentle but very decided hand. "Don't let anyone else see it!" she said. "And don't tell me any more unless you're sure—quite sure—you want me to know!"
"Why shouldn't you know?" said Mrs. Fielding pettishly through her falling tears. "It's your fault in a way. At least it wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been here—you and that horrid little cad of a schoolmaster."
"Oh, don't put it like that!" said Juliet. "It's such a pity to offend everybody at once. You really mustn't cry any more or you'll be ill. I'm sure it isn't worth that."
"I don't care if I die!" cried Mrs. Fielding, with a fresh burst of weeping. "I'm miserable—miserable! And nobody cares."
She flung herself down upon the pillow in such a paroxysm of hysterical sobbing that Juliet actually was alarmed. She stood beside her, impotent, unable to make herself heard, and wondering what to do. She had never before looked upon such an abandonment of distress as she now beheld, and since Mrs. Fielding was obviously beyond all reasoning or consolation she was powerless to cope with it. She could only stand and wait for the storm to spend itself.
It seemed, however, to increase rather than to abate, and she was beginning to contemplate recalling Cox to her assistance when to her astonishment the door suddenly opened, and Fielding himself appeared upon the threshold.
She turned sharply, her first impulse to keep him out, for he wore an ugly look. But in a moment she realized that the direction of affairs was not in her control. He came straight forward with a mastery that would brook no interference.
"Leave her to me!" he said, as he reached Juliet.
But at the first word his wife uttered so wild a shriek of alarm that Juliet turned back to her with the swift instinct to protect. In an instant Mrs. Fielding was clinging to her, clinging desperately, frantically, like a terrified child.
"Oh, don't go! Oh, don't leave me!" she gasped. "Juliet! Juliet!
Stay—oh, stay!"