The surgeon made no attempt to answer the question. He seemed very greatly put out, as if the revelation had alarmed or unnerved him, scarcely noticing Honour.
"Mrs. St. John says she heard nothing," he presently observed to himself, as one in abstraction. "Honour," he continued in straightforward tones to the girl, "I think you must be mistaken. There appears to have been no one upstairs who would have bolted it. Mrs. St. John tells me she did not quit the dining-room: the servants say they never came up at all during the afternoon."
"One of them was up," rejoined Honour in the same low voice, and the same roving gaze round the walls, "and that was Prance. I saw her myself; I can't be mistaken. Does she say she was not upstairs, sir?"
"She has said nothing to me one way or the other," replied Mr. Pym. "I heard it said generally that the servants had not been upstairs."
"Prance was; and if she says she was not, she tells a lie. She was hidden in the recess outside, opposite the doors."
"Hidden in the recess. When?"
"After I dropped the things from my apron, and was running round to the dressing-room, I saw Prance standing inside the recess; she was squeezing herself against the wall, sir, as if afraid I should see her."
"Did you speak to her?"
"No, sir; and you may feel surprised at what I am going to say, but it's the truth. I was so flurried at the time, what with finding the first door fastened and with the smell of burning, that I did not seem then to be conscious of seeing her. I suppose my eyes took in the impression without conveying it to my mind. But afterwards it all came into my mind, and I remembered it, and how she was standing. It was just as if she had fastened the doors, and then put herself there to listen to the child's dying cries."
"Hush," authoritatively reproved Mr. Pym. "You are not yourself, girl, or you would not say it."