She sat down on the opposite side of the fire to her husband.
"My dear," she said, and there was distress in her voice, "I am so worried about Mary."
"About Mary?" Sir Augustus replied, with some little surprise. "Oh, you need not worry about Mary, Julia. Of course, this has been a great blow to her. But she is young and level-headed in many ways. Time will heal her wounds."
"Oh, it is not that, Augustus. Of course, the poor dear girl will get over her grief. Besides, she is religious, you know, and that certainly does seem to help certain natures. I have often observed it. But I am anxious about her now. Lluellyn was buried two days ago, and except Mr. Owen's telegram announcing the bare fact, we have not heard a word from either of them. Mary ought to be back here now."
"Well, my dear," the baronet replied, "I really don't think there is the slightest reason for anxiety. Mary is in perfectly safe hands. Indeed, I am particularly grateful to Owen for accompanying her himself. It is a thing I should hardly have ventured to ask him. I quite imagined he would send one of the elderly confidential clerks—Mr. Simpson, for instance—a most respectable and trustworthy person."
"I hope it's all right, I'm sure," the dame replied. "But I can't see what is keeping the girl for two days after the funeral, all the same. And why is there no letter? Mary has a fortnight's leave of absence from that stupid hospital, and she had arranged to come here and stay with us."
There was a silence. Then Lady Kirwan pressed a button in the panelled wall.
"I will take my coffee in here," she said. Sir Augustus nodded, and picked up the newspaper once more.
A footman with powdered hair and large shoulder-knots brought in a little nacre-encrusted table, with a tiny silver cup, a bowl of dark-brown sugar-candy from Jamaica, and the long-handled brass pan from Turkey, which held the coffee.
He had hardly left the room when Lady Kirwan was startled by a sudden loud exclamation from Sir Augustus.