“One of the maids—Anne—came and woke me,” said Katrine, speaking very calmly, as she looked from one to the other, the most collected of any one present. “She said there was something wrong.”
“She woke me, too,” cried Lydia, who was trembling visibly, and looked of a sallow grey.
“Mr Girtle, will you come down?”
It was the butler’s voice, and Paul Capel ran quickly down the stairs to the drawing-room floor, where the old butler, ghastly pale, with his hair sticking to his forehead, had lit half-a-dozen candles and stood them, some on a table, some on the pedestal of the great bronze group outside Colonel Capel’s door.
“What is it? Speak, man!” cried Capel.
“The ladies! Don’t let the ladies come!”
It was too late; they were already there; and the women-servants were dimly seen in the gloom at the foot of the stairs.
“But what is wrong?” cried Capel.
“I—I—”
The butler passed his hand over his humid face, and looked piteously from one to the other.