Lady Raynham rose from a low chair near the fire. She was a little, insignificant woman, rather unfashionably attired, with neat grey hair and an entirely undistinguished face, but as she stood there, motionless, waiting for Magda to come up to her, she was quite unconsciously impressive—transformed by that tragic dignity with which great sorrow invests even the most commonplace of people.
Her thin, middle-aged features looked drawn and puckered by long hours of strain. Her eyes were red-rimmed with sleeplessness. They searched Magda’s face accusingly before she spoke.
“What have you done to my son?”
“Where is he?” Magda’s answering question came in almost breathless haste.
“You don’t know!”
Lady Raynham sat down suddenly. Her legs were trembling beneath her—had been trembling uncontrollably even as she nerved herself to stand and confront the woman at whose door she laid the ruin of her son. But now the spurt of nervous energy was exhausted, and she sank back into her chair, thankful for its support.
“I don’t know where he is,” she said tonelessly. “I don’t even know whether he is alive or dead.”
She fumbled in the wrist-bag she carried, and withdrawing a crumpled sheet of notepaper held it out. Magda took it from her mechanically, recognising, with a queer tightening of the muscles of her throat, the boyish handwriting which sprawled across it.
“You want me to read this?” she asked.
“You’ve got to read it,” replied the other harshly. “It is written to you. I found it—after he’d gone.”