"Ah! yes," he said, "I knew how you'd feel it, Colonel. Without being oversentimental, it is a thing to break up one's sense of personal security. And a relation of yours too! Only nine-and-twenty—a mere child compared to you, of course, Colonel. It's always painful to see the younger generation go first. Yes, I knew how you'd feel it. Kind of you to come off at once like this to make inquiries. It will please Margaret, poor, dear girl. She sent for me directly they made the discovery this morning, and I've been with her ever since, looking after her and putting things through. You see, Joanna always kept the management of the establishment in her own hands, and the whole household fell to pieces like a bundle of sticks to-day. All the servants lost their heads. Somebody had to step in and lay hold. Margaret is behaving beautifully. This bearing up is all very well at first, but I'm afraid she's bound to pay later. However, thank God! I've the right, now, to take care of her."
"Quite so—no doubt—yes, exactly," Haig responded, in rather chilly accents. "Of course. But I have heard nothing but the bare fact, Challoner. Quite sudden, was it—quite unexpected?"
"Yes, and no." He spoke slowly, as one weighing his words.
"I sincerely trust there isn't any question of an inquiry?"
From his superior height Challoner looked down at the speaker in momentary and sharp suspicion. What story was current in Stourmouth, he wondered? Could the servants have talked? Had the empty tabloid bottle and the tumbler with a film of white sediment clouding the inside of it, become a matter of common knowledge? He found Rentoul Haig's expression reassuring.
"Certainly not—quite uncalled for, I am thankful to say," he replied largely. "No, no, Colonel, nothing of that sort. An inquest is a pretty sickening business under ordinary circumstances; but it amounts to a positive insult, in my opinion, in the case of a refined, sensitive gentlewoman."
Rentoul Haig came near dancing with impatience.
"True, true," he murmured.
"So, pray put that idea out of your head, and out of everybody else's head, Colonel. You'll be doing Margaret a kindness, doing poor Joanna a kindness too. People are awfully unscrupulous in the reports they circulate. But then, of course, I know we can count on your gentlemanly feeling and good taste."
A moment more and Colonel Haig believed he should burst. He was being patronized—patronized, he the bright, particular star of the most elect circle of Stourmouth society, and by Joseph Challoner!