"Marius hath the blame," said the Countess in an exhausted voice. "Honoria, I could have loved him."
"What matter for that? He can go abroad. Ye are safe. Come to bed." She caught her mistress by the arm and strove to raise her from the chair. "Will you not come to bed? What if any find you in this trim?"
The Countess raised herself languidly.
"I should put these papers to rights," she said feebly.
Honoria noticed with a little pang of horror that the letters scattered about were old, childish epistles dating from my lady's girlhood at the boarding-school, and long put away.
"What are you doing with these?" she asked.
"I do not know." The Countess dropped the keys of the desk from her limp hand and caught Honoria's shoulder. "Help me to bed. I am very cold."
"You risked your life in this wet!" cried the maid, terrified at her face. "You are certainly ill. Shall I fetch the doctor?"
"No—no doctor," answered the Countess. "I am very well."
Honoria helped her to the bedchamber and undressed her, huddling away the wet clothes with their treacherous stains of mud. The Countess flung a blue wrap over her tumbled petticoats and sank into a chair at the foot of her bed.