Mildred dared not turn up the gas in case the light might be seen from without and excite suspicion, but she peered about the dressing-table, discovered a bottle of salts among the litter of silver ornaments, and with the aid of this and a plenteous sprinkling of water, managed to arouse the old lady to consciousness. The flattened eyelids opened, and Lady Sarah stared upwards with dreamy unrecognising eyes, for in the uncertain light the figure of the girl in her white robes and flowing golden hair seemed more like a heavenly visitant than a flesh-and-blood girl.
“Who,—who,—what are you?” she muttered, and Mildred bent nearer with a reassuring smile.
“It is I—Mildred! Mildred Moore. I heard you call and came to see what was wrong. Don’t be frightened, Lady Sarah. You know me—you know Mildred! I will take care of you—No one shall do you any harm.”
Lady Sarah continued to stare with those dazed, bewildered eyes, then suddenly the light of understanding flashed over her face, her fingers clasped the girl’s arm, and she glanced wildly from side to side.
“Cécile? Cécile?”
“She is not here, Lady Sarah. She has gone downstairs. I saw her go, and came in here at once to look after you.”
“Gone? Downstairs?” Lady Sarah pushed the girl away, and drawing herself up in the bed, began groping hurriedly beneath her pillow. “The key? It is gone—she has taken it! Oh, Mildred, the key of the safe in the strong-room. I had it here. I slept with it under my pillow. She tried to take it from me, and I wouldn’t give it up.—She is a thief, Mildred, a cunning, wicked woman, and when she could not get it from me by force, she put chloroform on that handkerchief and held it over my face. She has accomplices downstairs. They will open the safe and get away before anyone knows they are here. There are valuables of my own there besides Mrs Faucit’s. We shall never see them again, and I was left in charge. The wicked woman! She has been scheming for this. Oh, she is cruel, she is dangerous—she will kill you, child, if she comes back and finds you here.”
Mildred laughed shortly, and threw back her hair with a scornful gesture: “Not she, indeed! She would be far more afraid of me than I should be of her. But what is to be done, Lady Sarah? We must do something quickly; there is no time to be lost. Shall I go and waken Bertha—the servants—Miss Turner?”
“A lot of nervous women! What good would they do? They would go off into hysterics, and give the alarm before you could get downstairs. And if you went down, what could you do, children and girls as you are, against old practised hands? Cécile has never planned this by herself. There are two or three men downstairs, she let out as much in her anger. If you could find James...”
Lady Sarah broke off, and stared into the girl’s face with her haggard eyes. It was an intent, questioning gaze, but the girl did not shrink before it. She nodded her head gravely, as if recognising the force of the suggestion, and accepting the responsibility which it thrust upon her, for James’s room was cut off from the rest of the house, and to reach it it was necessary to descend to the ground floor, and go along the whole length of the passage leading to the servants’ hall.