She could not send the antidote with the bane, for the early post had already gone out, taking her letter with it. But she could write by the night mail, and Miss Gerace would then receive her apology on the afternoon of the same day, which witnessed her offence.
One of the servants from the Court always went over for the letter bag twice a day, and it was understood Miss Gerace's correspondence went and came at the same time.
She need not therefore sleep upon the first letter; Dolly decided she would not sleep either till the second was written.
"Dear Aunt,—(so began number two of the same date)—I am so sorry for the ill-tempered things I said this morning. I did not really mean one of them. Your letter made me angry for the minute, and I wrote without stopping to think, indeed I did.
"Dear auntie, forgive me. When I remember all the years during which you stinted yourself to provide for me, I feel a monster of ingratitude. I will go to you now if you will have me, and take Lenore; but no servant; and Archie shall fetch me back when I have made my peace, and you are quite tired of me. I love you better than a thousand Edward Geraces, and their wives into the bargain, and their is not a stone in your house, or a plant in your garden that is not dear to me.
"Your ever affectionate,
"Dolly."
After which came a postscript.
"A message from home has just arrived. My husband is ill, so I cannot go to Dassell. Direct to Homewood."
Which Miss Gerace did.
With a good grace she said she was sorry to hear of Mr. Mortomley's illness and trusted he would soon be restored to health. With a bad grace she sent Mrs. Mortomley her forgiveness, and regretted Dolly's tendency to ill-temper was the besetting sin even her course of education had been unable to rectify. The one thing—she added with her own peculiar grace—she lamented to find was so strong a taint of vulgarity in her brother's child. The letter for which she so properly apologized would not have disgraced a Billingsgate fishwife. For that trait in her character she must have gone back to some alien blood.
"Poor aunt!" remarked Dolly, putting the letter aside, "she will never be good friends with me again. If she knew how ill Archie is, I do not think she would be so hard upon me."
Certainly Mr. Mortomley was very ill. For no light cause would Antonia Halling have summoned Mrs. Mortomley back as she did, but when she sent her telegram she really was afraid of the owner of Homewood dying in her hands.