CHAPTER XIV — THE LAW'S LAST WORD
Mr. Sigsbee remained for luncheon. He did not return to the city until late in the afternoon. All day long an atmosphere of gloom, not altogether attributable to reaction from the Fourth, pervaded the house. By that strange, mysterious form of contagion described as "sensing," the servants became infected by the depression; questioning looks were answered by questioning looks; conversation was carried on in lowered tones and confined almost exclusively to matters pertaining to the work in hand; furtive looks were bestowed upon the door of Mr. Bingle's study and, later on, directed with some misgiving upon the closed transom above Mrs. Bingle's bedroom door. To the certain knowledge of the oldest servant on the place, this transom had never been lowered before.
This much was known to three persons: the butler, one of the footmen and Melissa: shortly after the strange gentleman entered Mr. Bingle's study with the master, the mistress and Dr. Fiddler, Mrs. Bingle was led to her room by the doctor and her husband, moaning and wringing her hands. The trained nurse who had come down to take care of Rutherford was hastily summoned to the bedroom, and later on Diggs was instructed to telephone to Dr. Fiddler's office in town with an order to his assistant to send out a second nurse without delay.
At dinner, Mr. Bingle was singularly pale and preoccupied. His doctor and his lawyer talked of the attitude of the Administration at Washington in regard to the Mexican question and other problems in which a keen observer would have remarked that they were not at all interested—and in which Diggs and Hughes certainly had no present interest. They ate quite heartily, as doctors and lawyers are prone to do when the opportunity presents itself. Immediately after dinner they repaired to the study and closed the door. All evening there were telephone conversations with New York and Washington, and frequent visits to Mrs. Bingle's room by the doctor and Mr. Bingle.
At ten o'clock Mr. Bingle walked out upon the moon-lit lawn and gazed about him in all directions, taking in the terraces, the park, the gardens, and last of all the splendid facade of the great house itself. Head gardener Edgecomb approached and to him Mr. Bingle said:
"It was a beautiful place—a beautiful place, indeed," and then straightway returned to the house. Edgecomb, slack grammarian though he was, made note of the fact that he spoke of the house in the past tense, quite as if it were a thing that had ceased to exist.
The children had had their supper when Melissa came down from Mrs. Bingle's room, whither she had been summoned in some haste at five o'clock. She promptly announced that they were to skip off to bed at once as their mother's head was that bad that she was not to be disturbed by the slightest sound. To the inquiries of her fellow-servants, Melissa curtly replied that it was none of their business what had happened and if they had any business they'd better attend to it instead of snooping around the halls trying to find out something that did not in the least concern them.
Melissa knew what had happened. Before eight o'clock that night Miss Fairweather knew, and Flanders also. The great Bingle dream was not the only one to be shattered by the news that the day brought forth.