Hanbury spoke in favour of his mother's proposal and urged many arguments; but the old woman was quite firm. Back they must and would go. Why, if no other consideration would be allowed to weigh, there was the fact that her grand-daughter had not yet received her luggage from Eltham House.
This reference brought in Leigh's name, and then Hanbury told of the fire, the destruction of the clock, his meeting that morning with the dwarf, and the conviction of the latter that he would not long survive the destruction of his incomparable machine. He noticed as he went on that Miss Grace first flushed and then paled.
The girl had hardly spoken up to this. She sat silent and timid. She did not seem to hear quickly or to apprehend accurately. She had hesitated in her answers like one afraid. The table was small, and laid for four people. Hanbury sat opposite his mother, Edith opposite her grandmother. The heat was intense.
There was a buzzing and beating in the girl's ears. She heard as through a sound of plashing water. The talk of Leigh had carried her mind back to the country, back to Millway and Eltham House, and to the unexpected and unwelcome and disquieting apparition of the dwarf at the door of the house when she arrived there.
Through this strange noise of splashing water she heard in a low far-away voice the story of her fear and loneliness and desolation on that Wednesday, separated from her old home and the familiar streets, and the sustaining companionship of her old grandmother, who had been all the world to her. She heard this story chanted, intoned in this low, monotonous voice, and she had a dim feeling that all was changed, and that she was now environed by securities through which she could not be assailed by the attentions of that strange, ill-featured dwarf.
But her sight was very dim, and she could not see anything clearly or recollect exactly where she was. Gradually her sight cleared a little, and she was under trees heavy with leaves, alone on a lonely road by night. The rain fell unseen through the mute warm air. A thick perfume of roses made the air heavy with richness. She felt her breath come short, as though she had walked fast or run. The air was too rich to freshen life to cool the fevered blood.
Now she became dimly conscious of some sound other than the plashing of water. It was not the voice, for the voice had ceased. The sound was loud and distinct, and emphatic and tumultuous.
All at once she remembered what that sound was. She hastily put one hand to her left side, and the other to her forehead and rose, swaying softly to and fro.
"I--I----" she whispered, but could say no more.
Hanbury caught her, or she would have fallen. The two ladies got up.