CHAPTER III.
"And dawn, sore trembling still and grey with fear,
Looked hardly forth, a face of heavier cheer
Than one which grief or dread yet half enshrouds."
Swinburne.
WHEN Di came to herself, it was to find that she was sitting on the bank supported by Miss Crupps' trembling arm, with her head on Miss Crupps' shoulder. Some one, bending over her—could it be Lord Hemsworth with that blanched face and bare head?—was wiping her face with the gentleness of a woman.
"Have I had a fall?" she asked dizzily. "I don't remember. I thought it was—Miss Crupps who fell."
"Yes, you have had a fall," said Lord Hemsworth, hurriedly; "but you will be all right directly. Don't be all night with that brandy, Lumley."
Di suddenly perceived Mr. Lumley close at hand, trying to jerk something out of a little silver lamp into a tumbler. She had seen that lamp before. It had been handed round with lighted brandy in it with the mince-pies. No one drank it by itself. Evidently there was something wrong.
"I don't understand," she said, beginning to look about her. A confused gleam of remembrance was dawning in her eyes which terrified Lord Hemsworth.