Beatrice gave her visitor a glad greeting, but there was a subdued air about her, due, as Lorelie knew, to sorrow at the thought of Idris' departure.
"Has Mr. Breakspear told you that he is going to leave us?" she asked, and receiving an affirmative, she continued mournfully:—"As this is perhaps the last time we shall be together you must stay with us as long as you can. We are just about to have luncheon. Will you not join us?"
Lorelie readily assented, and went up-stairs with Beatrice to remove her hat and mantle.
"You are not looking very well, Lady Walden."
"No, Beatrice. And I shall never be well again."
Something in her tone went to Beatrice's heart: she guessed that Lorelie's unhappiness arose from Ivar's ill-treatment of her.
The beautiful face was suffused by an expression so miserable that Beatrice, the maiden of eighteen, involuntarily drew the married woman of twenty-three within her arms and kissed her consolingly, as though the viscountess were a little child. And Lorelie, glad of such sympathy, clung to Beatrice's embrace.
"Beatrice," she said presently, "if you should hear that I have slipped from a battlement on the roof of Ravenhall and dislocated my neck, or that I have lost my life by falling into the lake in the park, remember that this event will not have happened by accident."
"What do you mean?" gasped Beatrice, thinking that Lorelie was contemplating suicide.
"Let your brother say whether I am wrong. Did he analyze the contents of the phial that I sent him?"