“Ursula has gone out to meet them, like the mad creature she is. Dear Heaven, we shall all be murdered! Come away with me, Cécile—come away! We can get out at the back and take refuge at the gardener’s. Come immediately—come away!”
The Dowager rose, tottering, from her easy-chair.
“I am going to Ursula,” she said.
“To Ursula? Oh, mercy! Cécile, have you turned crazy, too? Let her get herself killed if she wants to; what business is it of yours? Oh, Heaven, I’m so frightened, I daren’t stay a second longer. Come with me! You surely don’t care so remarkably for Ursula?”
“That may be,” replied the Dowager, with one foot already on the stair; “but I am going to her now.”
CHAPTER XLVI
THE FATAL KNIFE
Mynheer Mopius was slowly dying. He amused himself with playing the part and schooling Harriet, little realizing that her willingness to accept the fiction found its source in her certitude of the fact.