He was terrified, as only reticent persons can be, lest her loss of self-control should be observed. He helped her to her feet, and took her to the cloak-room, she clinging convulsively to him. Her entire disregard of appearances filled him with apprehension. The cloak-room was empty, even of attendants, for it had been thronged till within the last ten minutes, and now the wave had surged back to the ballroom, and the maids, their duties finished, had slipped away to see the spectacle.
Sibyl cast herself down on a chair, shivering. Her little Grecian crown of diamonds fell crooked.
'Let me fetch Lady Pierpoint,' said Doll urgently.
'No, no,' she said imploringly; 'I want to go home. Oh, Doll, get the carriage, and take me home. Is it so much to ask?'
He looked at her in doubt. She was not fit to return to the ballroom. Evidently she would make no attempt to conceal her despair, whatever its cause might be, from the first chance comer.
'I will take you,' he said; and he rushed out to the stables, found the Wilderleigh coachman, and himself helped to put the horses into the brougham.
'It was ordered for one o'clock especially for Mr. Loftus,' said the coachman, hesitating, 'and the landau, and the fly, and the homnibus for half-past three.'
'You will be back in time for Mr. Loftus,' said Doll. 'Mrs. Loftus is ill, and must go home immediately.'
He had the brougham at the door in ten minutes, and returned to the cloak-room to find a maid standing by Sibyl with a glass of water. Sibyl was still shivering, holding on to the chair with both hands, her eyes half closed, her face ghastly.