"Jane, please, Jane!"
Lady Walderhurst was still sitting upon the sofa, but she looked pale and unsteady. The letter was in her hand, which rested weakly in her lap. It seemed as if she was so bewildered that she felt helpless.
She spoke in a tired voice.
"Jane," she said, "I think you will have to get me a glass of wine. I don't think I am going to faint, but I do feel so—so upset."
Jane was at her side kneeling by her.
"Please, my lady, lie down," she begged. "Please do."
But she did not lie down. She sat trembling and looking at the girl in a pathetic, puzzled fashion.
"I don't think," she quavered, "that his lordship can have received my letter. He can't have received it. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't say one word—"
She had been too healthy a woman to be subject to attacks of nerves. She had never fainted before in her life, and as she spoke she did not at all understand why Jane seemed to move up and down, and darkness came on suddenly in the middle of the morning.
Jane managed by main strength to keep her from falling from the sofa, and thanked Providence for the power vouchsafed to her. She reached the bell and rang it violently, and hearing it, Mrs. Cupp came upstairs with heavy swiftness.