George Godolphin was the first to draw his hand away. Charlotte had only stared with wondering eyes, and she now burst into a laugh of ridicule. “Thank you for your information,” said Mr. George. “There’s no knowing, Bray, but I may call your services into requisition some time.”
“Where are you?” came the soft voice of Lady Godolphin down the passage. “We must all hurry home: it is going to rain. Charlotte, are you there? Where have you all gone to? Charlotte, I say?”
Charlotte hastened out. Lady Godolphin took her arm at once, and walked with a quick step through the kitchen into the open air, nodding adieu to the old Welshwoman. My lady herself, her ermine, her velvets, possibly her delicately-bloomed complexion, all shrank from the violence of a storm. Storms, neither of life nor of weather, had ever come too near Lady Godolphin. She glanced upward at the threatening and angry sky, and urged Charlotte on.
“Can you walk fast? So lovely a morning as it was!”
“Here comes one of the servants,” exclaimed Charlotte. “With umbrellas, no doubt. How he runs!”
My lady lifted her eyes. Advancing towards them with fleet foot, as if he were running for a wager, came a man in the Godolphin livery. If umbrellas had been the object of his coming, he must have dropped them on his way, for his arms swung beside him, and his hands were empty.
“My lady,” cried the man, almost as much out of breath as Lady Godolphin: “Sir George is taken ill.”
My lady stopped then. “Ill!” she repeated. “Ill in what way?”
“Margery has just found him lying on the floor of his room, my lady. We have got him on to the bed, but he appears to be quite insensible. Andrew has gone to the doctor.”
“Hasten to the house there, and acquaint Mr. George Godolphin,” said my lady, pointing to Bray’s.