“Oh, ma’am! Will it be well to tell him?” remonstrated Joyce. “Well that he should see her?”
“Go and request your master to come to me,” unequivocally repeated Miss Carlyle. “Are you mistress, Joyce, or am I?”
Joyce went down and brought Mr. Carlyle up from the dinner-table.
“Is Madame Vine worse, Cornelia? Will she see me?”
“She wishes to see you.”
Miss Carlyle opened the door as she spoke. He motioned her to pass in first. “No,” she said, “you had better see her alone.”
He was going in when Joyce caught his arm. “Master! Master! You ought to be prepared. Ma’am, won’t you tell him?”
He looked at them, thinking they must be moonstruck, for their conduct seemed inexplicable. Both were in evident agitation, an emotion Miss Carlyle was not given to. Her face and lips were twitching, but she kept a studied silence. Mr. Carlyle knit his brow and went into the chamber. They shut him in.
He walked gently at once to the bed, in his straightforward manner.
“I am grieved, Madame Vine——”