She gave a little sigh and her head rolled to one side.
Maggie, with a startled fear, was suddenly conscious that she was alone in the room. She went to the door and called for the doctor. As they gathered about the bed the caverns of the fire fell with the sharp sound of a closing door.
Next morning Maggie wrote to Paul telling him that her aunt was dead, that the funeral would be in two days' time, and that she would stay in London until that was over. She had not very much time just then to think of the house and the dead woman in it, because on the breakfast-table there was this letter for her.
23 CROMWELL RD., KENSINGTON, March 12, 1912.
DEAR MRS. TRENCHARD,
I hear that you have come to London to visit your aunt. I have been hoping for some time past to have an opportunity of seeing you. I am sure that you will have no wish at all to see me; at the same time I do beg you to give me half an hour at the above address. Five o'clock to-morrow would be a good time. Please ask for Miss Warlock.
Believe me, Yours faithfully, AMY WARLOCK.
Maggie stared at the signature, then, with a thickly beating heart, decided that of course she would go. She was not afraid but—Martin's sister! What would come of it? The house was strangely silent; Aunt Elizabeth sniffed into her handkerchief a good deal; Mr. Magnus, his face strained with a look of intense fatigue, went out about some business. The blinds of the house wore down and all the rooms were bathed in a green twilight.
About quarter past four Maggie went down into the Strand and found a cab. She gave the address and off they went. Sitting in the corner of the cab she seemed to be an entirely passive spectator of events that were being played before her. She knew, remotely, that Aunt Anne's death had deeply affected her, that coming back to the old house had deeply affected her, and that this interview with Amy Warlock might simply fasten on her the fate that she had for many months now seen in front of her. She could not escape; and she did not want to escape.
They found the house, a very grimy looking one, in the interminable Cromwell Road. Maggie rang a jangling bell, and the door was ultimately opened by a woman with sleeves turned up at the elbows and a dirty apron.