A startled look leaped into the visitor's eyes. Then with a quiet dignity she slipped off her glove, displaying on her finger a narrow gold band.
"I am a widow," she said.
Mrs. Tilney had asked no more.
"While you get your trunk," she directed, "you leave that child with me. Tonight's no night for her to be traipsing the street! I'll see she has her supper too. What's she eat?"
And there you are! Barbara Wynne had come to Mrs. Tilney's!
There's not much more to be told. At seven the mother returned. Then, sometime later, an express wagon left a trunk at Mrs. Tilney's door. That night Mrs. Wynne came down to her dinner; but after that, of Mrs. Tilney's guests none but Mr. Mapleson saw her ever again. Late the second night the little man pattered down the stairs and tapped at Mrs. Tilney's door.
"You'd better go up," he said; "something's happening."
Donning a dressing sack, Mrs. Tilney hurried upstairs. Half an hour later the doctor came. He gave one look at the woman moaning on her pillow—in her nightdress, her hair in braids, she seemed scarcely more than a girl—and then the doctor shrugged his shoulders.
"Pneumonia—going fast," he said.