For a long time Judith sat staring stonily at the irregular black lines, wandering stormily, like the life of their author, over the tattered paper. She fingered the envelope listlessly. It bore no address.
When the maid came to remove the breakfast things, she was dumfounded to discover her mistress with her head in her hands, but quite silent. Frightened, she withdrew quickly, to convey the strange intelligence below stairs.
Upon her return, in obedience to the disgusted promptings of the cook, who thought she was foolish ever to have left so interesting a scene, she found Judith just rising from the table, very pale, but otherwise as calm and self-contained as usual.
"I want the car at once," she said, a little huskily. And when the maid hesitated stupidly, she added in a tone which was almost fierce, "At once—do you hear?"
"I've never seen her look like that—never!" declared the maid when she was safe below stairs again.
"There's things the likes o' you can't understand," said the cook darkly.
"What d'ye mean?" cried the kitchen in chorus.
"I believe I'm able to keep the secrets as are intrusted to me," said the cook very haughtily, and with a finality which encouraged no further interrogation. Safely concealed behind the day-old newspaper—useful shield in time of distress—she concluded that her prestige had been rather strengthened than otherwise by the incident. The chauffeur's eldest boy chuckled furtively, to be sure, but then, he was an impertinent brat, whose opinion was of no consequence whatever.
While the kitchen buzzed with suppressed speculation, Judith was closeted with a placid little man whose business was the disclosure of other peoples' secrets.