“Hello! Breakfast ready?” she greeted him.
“Yes.”
He was looking at the little table on which the bird bath had stood. “Where’s the bird bath gone to?”
Janet looked at him hard and I looked at Janet. “It has gone to be cleaned, Dr. Wallace,” she replied.
“Cleaned! Oh, Ethel’s taken it, has she? I came to see if it wanted filling. Come along in to breakfast.”
The others were seated at the table when we got back to the house, and although Janet said very little and I could see that her thoughts were busy with our discovery, her presence again seemed to break down the restraint of some of our former meals. Neither Ethel, Margaret, nor the boys had heard of cook’s experience, and their natural curiosity kept the conversation going, and helped us to avoid those appalling periods of silence that I was beginning to associate not only with our meals, but even with dear old Dalehouse itself. Silences they were that seemed beyond our control. Silences that seemed to close down on us from outside, while we sat with averted eyes, each busy with his own suspicious thoughts.
“What a night you must have had,” was Ethel’s comment. “I see now that I ought to have given way, and have allowed you to turn her out last night as you wanted to, Tundish; then you would all have been spared.”
“No, it was my fault, and I blame myself entirely for what happened,” he replied. “I ought to have looked round myself before I went to bed, knowing the state she was in. I’m only glad that the rest of you were not disturbed—especially you two girls—it was no pretty sight, I can assure you.”
“I’m thankful I didn’t wake,” Margaret joined in, “I shouldn’t have slept another wink all night. It makes me feel quite faint even to think of it now.”
The doctor smiled broadly, rather unkindly too, I fancied. “Well, if that’s what you look like when you feel faint——!”