"James, are you insane?"
"For aiding and abetting, which is what harbouring amounts to! People have been sent to penal servitude for covering a murderer."
A modest tapping was heard; the room door was opened; Parkes, the butler, entering, closed it softly behind him; there was perturbation on his face and in his bearing.
"Excuse me, sir; excuse me, madam; but there's a dreadful kettle of fish in the servants' hall. I felt I had to come to you. Taylor brought in an evening paper to look at the cricket; and in it there's all about the Newcaster murder; and the servants will have it that, from the description in the paper, Miss Gilbert upstairs is the young woman who did it; and I must say myself that the description is surprisingly like. I am very sorry, sir, and madam, and Miss Frances, but they are going on so, and there's even some talk of some of them not staying in the house. According to the paper there's a reward of a hundred pounds offered for her capture; and West, who's talking of getting married, says that if she had the hundred pounds she might get married at once, and that she doesn't see, if anyone is to have it, why it shouldn't be her; and, sir, and madam, and Miss Frances, I don't know what will happen if something isn't done to stop her."
CHAPTER XVII
[A FRIEND'S ADVICE]
One of those sudden changes had taken place in the weather to which we in England are so accustomed. With the day the glory had departed. Evening was ushered in by leaden skies. Dorothy became conscious how, all at once, shadows seemed to have gathered. She had no means of telling what the time was; she had never possessed a watch, and in the pink room there was no clock. The regatta seemed over; the garden had emptied; the hum of people's voices, of laughter, which had floated in to her through the open window, had ceased; silence reigned. To her excited fancy there was something ominous in the sudden stillness, the growing darkness. What was going on downstairs? It was odd that they should have left her so long alone--with the ghosts which would press on her even in the sunshine, but which pressed still closer with the advent of the night. Why had she seen nothing, heard nothing, of Frances? The people had gone. Was she forgotten?--or what? It was very hard to sit there waiting, watching, listening. Why did not something happen? She was so unnerved that, of her own volition, she seemed incapable of doing anything. When she was a very small child, whenever there was trouble in the air, if opportunity offered, she would undress herself and get into bed, as if bed were sanctuary. She would have liked to insinuate herself between the sheets then, though it was scarcely night, but she was afraid; and she had a feeling that, for her, the days when bed was sanctuary had gone. Why did not someone come, if it was only to tap at the door and ask how she was?
Someone did tap. The sound was so unexpected that it started her trembling. It was such a curious tap; not at all the firm, pronounced tap Frances might have given, but faint, furtive; almost as if the tapper were anxious not to be heard. Indeed, in the silence which followed, Dorothy was not sure that it was a tap--until it came again, no louder, as if someone touched the panel of the door lightly, with the tip of a single finger. Dorothy vouchsafed no invitation to enter. She did not ask who was there. She felt sure it was not Frances, nor a message from her; it was not the sort of tap which would be given by a bearer of good tidings.
The tap was not repeated. Instead, after an interval, the door was opened, softly, slowly, with about its movement the same furtive something which had characterised the tapping; a few inches, then a pause; a few more inches, another pause; there was an appreciable space of time before it was opened wide enough to permit of a person entering. Then there slipped, rather than came, into the room, a young woman, a servant, of about Dorothy's own age; in appearance her antipodes--short, squat, with a square head and face, high cheek-bones, skin the colour of old port when held up to a strong light. Closing the door as stealthily as she had opened it she tiptoed towards the centre of the room. Twisted half round on her seat, Dorothy had sat and watched her in silence; now, as she approached, she rose from her chair.
"What do you want? Who are you?"