“Do you want anything here?” she quietly said.
“Much obleeged for the inquiry, miss. We are all right.”
The words and tone struck her as being singular in the extreme; and they kept their seats, too, as though they had a right to be there.
“Why are you here?” she repeated. “What are you doing?”
“Well, miss, I don’t mind telling you, for I suppose you are his daughter”—pointing his left thumb over his shoulder at the late peer—“and we hear he have got no other relative anigh him. We have been obleeged, miss, to perform an unpleasant dooty and secure him.”
The words were like Greek to her, and the men saw that they were.
“He unfortunately owed a slight amount of money, miss—as you, perhaps, be aware on, and our employers is in, deep. So, as soon as they heard what had happened, they sent us down to arrest the dead corpse, and we have done it.”
Amazement, horror, fear, struggled together in the shocked mind of Lady Isabel. Arrest the dead. She had never heard of a like calamity: nor could she have believed in such. Arrest it for what purpose? What to do? To disfigure it?—to sell it? With a panting heart and ashy lips, she turned from the room. Mrs. Mason happened to be passing near the stairs, and Isabel flew to her, laying hold of her with both hands, in her terror, as she burst into a fit of nervous tears.
“Those men—in there!” she gasped.
“What men, my lady?” returned Mrs. Mason, surprised.