"And couldn't open his lips to say so!" interposed Jemima. "It's just like those doctors. The master is dreadfully cut up."
They tried to make me take some breakfast, but I could neither eat nor drink. Jemima said they had had theirs "ages ago." None of the household had been to bed since the alarm.
"All I know is, that if blame lies anywhere it is with the doctors," observed Charlotte Delves, as she pressed me to eat. "Every direction they gave was minutely followed."
"Why did nobody fetch me down to see her?"
"Child, she never asked for you; she was past thinking of things. And to you it would only have been a painful sight."
"That's true," added Jemima. "When I looked at her, all unconcerned, I saw death in her face. It frightened me, I can tell you. I ran to call the master, thinking——"
"Thinking what?" spoke Charlotte Delves, for Jemima had made a sudden pause.
"Nothing particular, Miss Delves. Only that something which had happened in the day was odd," added Jemima, glancing significantly at me. "The master was in his room half undressed, and he came rushing after me, just as he was. The minute he looked on her he murmured that she was dying, and sent off a man for Mr. Lowe, and another for the old doctor from Nettleby. Lowe came at once, but the other did not get here till it was over. She died at two."
Jemima would have enlarged on the details for ever. I felt sick as I listened. Even now, as I write, a sort of sickness comes over me with the remembrance. I wandered into the hall, and was sobbing with my head against the dining-room door-post, not knowing any one was there, when Mr. Edwin Barley gently unlatched the door and looked out.
He had been weeping, as was easy to be seen. His eyes were red—his air and manner subdued; but my acquired fear of him was in full force, and I would rather have gone away than been drawn in.