"When--when will they take him away?"
"Directly. The ambulance is coming--I shall go with him. Take my arm." She leaned on him heavily, and as they approached the house they saw two figures step out of it--Marsham and Diana.
Diana came quickly, in her light white dress. Her eyes were red, but she was quite composed. Chide looked at her with tenderness. In the two hours which had passed since the tragedy she had been the help and the support of everybody, writing, giving directions, making arrangements, under his own guidance, while keeping herself entirely in the background. No parade of grief, no interference with himself or the doctors; but once, as he sat by the body in the darkened room, he was conscious of her coming in, of her kneeling for a little while at the dead man's side, of her soft, stifled weeping. He had not said a word to her, nor she to him. They understood each other.
And now she came, with this wistful face, to Lady Lucy. She stood between that lady and Marsham, in her own garden, without, as it seemed to Sir James, a thought of herself. As for him, in the midst of his own sharp grief, he could not help looking covertly from one to the other, remembering that February scene in Lady Lucy's drawing-room. And presently he was sure that Lady Lucy too remembered it. Diana timidly begged that she would take some food--some milk or wine--before her drive home. It was three hours--incredible as it seemed--since she had called to them in the road. Lady Lucy, looking at her, and evidently but half conscious--at first--of what was said, suddenly colored, and refused--courteously but decidedly.
"Thank you. I want nothing. I shall soon be home. Oliver!"
"I go to Lytchett with Sir James, mother. Miss Mallory begs that you will let Mrs. Colwood take you home."
"It is very kind, but I prefer to go alone. Is my carriage there?"
She spoke like the stately shadow of her normal self. The carriage was waiting. Lady Lucy approached Sir James, who was standing apart, and murmured something in his ear, to the effect that she would come to Lytchett that evening, and would bring flowers. "Let mine be the first," she said, inaudibly to the rest. Sir James assented. Such observances, he supposed, count for a great deal with women; especially with those who are conscious of having trifled a little with the weightier matters of the law.
Then Lady Lucy took her leave; Marsham saw her to her carriage. The two left behind watched the receding figures--the mother, bent and tottering, clinging to her son.
"She is terribly shaken," said Sir James; "but she will never give way."