'Don't--don't forbid me.' She put her hand on his arm. 'I promise you shall have no scene.'
She went; she and I alone together in a carriage. It turned out that the mausoleum wasn't very far away; half a mile, perhaps, or three-quarters; but she never would have walked it. All the way she sat holding my hand, sometimes squeezing it so tight that she hurt. And such a look upon her face! Just before we stopped she spoke; I expect because she couldn't keep still any longer.
'What do you think he's afraid of?'
The question took me aback; because I had been wondering myself, and the more I wondered the less I could think.
'I don't know. But if I were you I wouldn't trouble, whatever it is.'
'You wouldn't trouble? And he's my man?'
I knew she was hinting at what I'd said about James. When she spoke like that I'd nothing else to say.
I never saw anything like that mausoleum. It was like a little church built of granite. We went through a door into a sort of tiny room. The two doctors met us. Sir Gregory spoke.
'Everything is ready. Now, my dear ladies, this young lady'--meaning me--'is the only one of you for whose presence there is the slightest necessity. Lady Violet, and you, Miss Desmond, if you take my urgent advice, will remain here till she returns.'
He spoke in a way which showed that he meant that his advice should be attended to; I dare say the young gentleman had been saying a word or two upon the road. Anyhow they did as he wished. They stayed behind, and I went with him and Dr. Clinton into a kind of room which was beyond. It was a dome-shaped place. The walls and floor were of bare granite. The only light came through some small painted windows which were high above the ground. There were narrow holes in the walls here and there to let the air come through. All round the place were shelves; on some of the shelves were coffins. One of them, which had been taken, I expect, from where it had stood upon a shelf, was raised above the ground on a black pall in the centre of the floor. Four men, who looked like mechanics, stood one at either corner, each with a screw-driver in his hand.