When it was over Dinah took Fay firmly by the hand and led her upstairs to her room. "You're going to lie down till tea-time, my girl," she said. "How much sleep did you get last night?"
"Not very much," Fay said, with a forced smile. She let Dinah help her to slip off her frock, and huddled herself into a dressing-gown with a little shiver.
Dinah banked up the pillows on the bed, and patted it invitingly. "Come along, ducky. You'll feel better if you can manage to put in a little sleep."
Fay came docilely, and lay down. Her wide eyes stole to Dinah's face for a moment, and then sank. "Yes. I expect I shall. Dinah —"
Dinah took one of her cold hands. "What, darling?"
"When the detective comes," Fay said carefully, "Do you think I need be there? Of course he will want to see me; I quite realise that. But do you think I need receive him? Could you be there instead? Geoffrey isn't much good, and — and I expect he'll want someone, won't he?"
"I haven't the foggiest notion," said Dinah, "but I'll be there all right. Don't you worry about it!"
"Thank you," Fay said.
Miss Fawcett withdrew, and went downstairs to the telephone. She had remembered that no one had as yet broken the news to her mother.
Mrs. Fawcett received the tidings characteristically.After her first exclamations of horror and incredulity she said in a faint, injured voice that Dinah should not have told her over the telephone; the shock was too terrible. So Dinah knew then that her parent was enjoying a spell of shattered health, and there would not be the least necessity to dissuade her from instantly coming to Fay's side. Mrs. Fawcett had made attention to her own comfort her primary consideration for so many years that it was extremely doubtful whether anything could break a habit thus firmly embedded. In a plaintive voice that would have led any stranger to suppose her to be on the point of collapse she said that she only wished she could come down at once to be with dearest Fay. Only what, she asked sadly, was the use of her dragging herself on the long, tiring journey when she would have to go to bed the instant she arrived? It would be the sheerest folly, for she was already far from well, and Dinah must surely know how the slightest exertion prostrated her.