Was the woman a thought-reader? At that instant May had been thinking—the first time for weeks, perhaps—of her Admirable Crichton in the old Northampton days, and reflecting with gratification on the vast change which had come upon her life and her mind since she followed Mr. Yabsley's spiritual direction. Startled, she gazed at the speaker.
"How odd that you should have remembered his name!"
"Not at all. I heard it so often when you first came here."
"Did you?" said May, pretending to be amused. "Mr. Yabsley is a remarkable man, and I value his friendship. You remind me that I really ought to write to him."
Constance seemed to lose all her interest in the matter, and spoke of something trivial.
In the course of the morning there happened a singular thing.
Lady Ogram rose earlier than usual. Before leaving her room, she read in the Hollingford Express all about the sudden death of Mr. Robb. The event had kept her awake all night. Though on the one side a disappointment, for of late she had counted upon Robb's defeat at the next election as an all but certain thing, the fact that she had outlived her enemy, that he lay, as it were, at her feet, powerless ever again to speak an insulting word, aroused all the primitive instincts of her nature. With the exultation of a savage she gloated over the image of Robb stricken to the ground. Through the hours of darkness, she now and then sang to herself, and the melodies were those she had known when a girl, or a child, common songs of the street. It was her chant of victory and revenge.
Having risen, she went into the drawing-room on the same floor as her bedchamber, and summoned two menservants. After her first serious illness, she had for a time been carried up and down stairs in a chair made for that purpose; she now bade her attendants fetch the chair, and convey her to the top story of the house. It was done. In her hand she had a key, and with this she unlocked the door of that room which had been closed for half a century. Having stood alone within the garret for a few minutes, she called to the men, who, on entering, looked with curiosity at dust-covered forms in clay and in marble. Their mistress pointed to a bust which stood on a wooden pedestal some three feet high.
"You are to clean that. Bring water and soap. I will wait here whilst you do it."
The task was quickly performed; the marble shone once more, and its pedestal of lustrous black looked little the worse for long seclusion. Lady Ogram sat with her eyes fixed upon the work of art, and for a minute or two neither moved nor spoke.