Some one was ill in Berkeley Square, evidently very ill. Straw was laid thick all along one side of it, depressing damp, fresh straw, over which the carriage rolled with a dull drag of the wheels.
It lay before the door of his own house, he observed, as he stepped out. It was very thickly scattered. The door swung open as the carriage stopped. Crossing the threshold, he glanced at the face of the footman nearest to him. The man looked like a mute at a funeral, and the expression was so little in accord with his mood that he stopped with a feeling of irritation. He had not time to speak, however, before a new sensation arrested his attention,—a faint odour which filled the place.
"The house smells like a hospital," he exclaimed, in great annoyance. "What does it mean?"
The man he addressed did not answer. He turned a perturbed awkward face to his superior in rank, an older man, who was house steward.
In the house of mortal pain or death there is but one thing more full of suggestion than the faint smell of antiseptics,—the gruesome, cleanly, unpleasant odour,—that is, the unnatural sound of the whispering of hushed voices. Lord Walderhurst turned cold, and felt it necessary to stiffen his spine when he heard his servant's answer and the tone in which it was made.
"Her ladyship, my lord—her ladyship is very low. The doctors do not leave her."
"Her ladyship?"
The man stepped back deferentially. The door of the morning-room had been opened, and old Lady Maria Bayne stood on the threshold. Her worldly air of elderly gaiety had disappeared. She looked a hundred. She was almost dilapidated. She had allowed to relax themselves the springs which held her together and ordinarily supplied her with sprightly movement.
"Come here!" she said.
When he entered the room, aghast, she shut the door.