"Thank you for telling me," she said.
They were at the house-door and the hansom had pulled up. They went up the steps between the couchant lions and before they could knock Pat had opened the door, as though he had been listening for them.
"Miss Nelly is in the drawing-room, sir," he said in his privileged Irish way; "but the master has just gone into the study."
They went up to the drawing-room. Nelly was sitting in a chair by the open window as Robin had left her, tearless, her unemployed hands lying in her lap. The circle of dogs about her watching her with anxious eyes would have been humorous in other circumstances. The lamps were lit behind her, but there was no light on her face, except the dying light in the pale western sky.
"I have brought you a visitor, Nelly," Robin said.
She looked up indifferently. Then something of interest stirred in her face.
"You have heard what has happened?" she said in a half-whisper.
Mary knelt down beside her and put her arms round the little frozen figure.
"Why, you are cold!" she said. "Come away from the window. I am going to ask for a fire, and then you will talk to me about it."
Robin Drummond left them together, and went down to tell Pat to light the fire in the drawing-room, because Miss Nelly was cold.