"Would you be so kind as to tell me what you have heard, and in what way it refers to me?" and Mrs. Dorriman felt the suspense was very terrible to her.
"Be prepared, for you evidently have heard nothing," and Mrs. Wymans felt to the full the importance of being the first to tell important news; "Mrs. Drayton's baby is dead, and, Mrs. Dorriman, the child did not die a natural death!"
Mrs. Dorriman started—for a moment she lost her self-control.
"Take care, Mrs. Wymans! Oh, do you know what you are saying!"
"You know nothing?"
"I know nothing about the child, and," taking sudden courage at the thought, "Jean, my old servant, wrote to me, and Grace—Miss Rivers—telegraphed, 'Mr. Drayton is ill,' that is all. There is nothing more."
"There is a great deal more. But, my dear Mrs. Dorriman, pray compose yourself; pray do not excite yourself. Mr. Drayton is ill, that is true, but has no one told you anything else?"
"What more can any one have to say?" Mrs. Dorriman asked, struggling for self-command, and feeling as though it was beyond her.
Mrs. Wymans paused; she had believed her authority to be good, and she had so completely credited every word she heard—we are all of us so apt to believe the very worst part of a friend's misfortune—that now, finding that Mrs. Dorriman knew nothing, she began to ask herself, when it was too late, if the story could be altogether true; perhaps it had been exaggerated.
"Perhaps," she said slowly, "as you have heard nothing——"