I found her alone, and, when I entered she was standing before a miniature that hung on the wall. She looked round as I entered and I saw that she still looked rather dazed and strange. Her eyes were red, as if she had been weeping but they were now tearless, and she seemed calmer than when I had first seen her. I went to her side, and for a few moments we stood silently regarding the smiling, girlish face that looked out at us from the miniature. It was that of Barbara’s step-sister, a very sweet, loveable girl, little more than a child, who had died some four years previously, and who, I had sometimes thought, was the only human creature for whom Barbara had felt a really deep affection. The miniature had been painted from a photograph after her death and a narrow plait of her gorgeous, red-gold hair had been carried round inside the frame.
“Poor little Stella!” Barbara murmured. “I have been asking myself if I neglected her, too. I often left her for days at a time.”
“You mustn’t be morbid, Barbara,” I said. “The poor child was very well looked after and as happy as she could be made. And nobody could have done any more for her. Rapid consumption is beyond the resources of medical science at present.”
“Yes, unfortunately.” She was silent for a while. Then she said: “I wonder if anything could have been done for Harold. Do you think it possible that he might have been saved?”
“I know of no reason for thinking so, and now that he is gone I see no use in raising the question.”
She drew closer to me and slipped her hand into mine.
“You will be with us as much as you can, Rupert, won’t you? We always look to you in trouble or difficulty, and you have never failed us. Even now you don’t condemn me, whatever you may think.”
“No, I blame myself for not being more alert, though it was really Dimsdale who misled us all. Has Madeline gone to the school?”
“Yes. She had to give a lecture or demonstration, but I hope she will manage to get a day or two off duty. I don’t want to be left alone with poor Tony. It sounds unkind to say so, for no one could be more devoted to me than he is. But he is so terribly high-strung. Just now, he is in an almost hysterical state. I suppose you haven’t seen him this morning?”
“No. I came straight up to you.” I had, in fact, kept out of his way, for, to speak the truth, I did not much care for Anthony Wallingford. He was of a type that I dislike rather intensely; nervous, high-strung, emotional and in an incessant state of purposeless bustle. I did not like his appearance, his manners or his dress. I resented the abject fawning way in which he followed Barbara about, and I disapproved of his position in this house; which was nominally that of secretary to Barbara’s husband, but actually that of tame cat and generally useless hanger-on. I think I was on the point of making some disparaging comments on him, but at that moment there came a gentle tap at the door and the subject of my thoughts entered.