CHAPTER XVIII
[In Bed]
"Violet!" The Countess of Cantyre came dashing into Miss Forster's bedroom--the word "dashing" fairly describes her method of entry. "I have been robbed."
Miss Forster was in bed, though very far from asleep, or even inclined to slumber. She had been borne upstairs in the carrying chair, her foot had been bathed and bandaged by sympathetic hands, and she had been placed between the sheets. She was given stern injunctions that she was on no account to move; the doctor would be sent for at the earliest reasonable hour, and until his arrival she was not to move. But when her ladyship made that announcement, she sat up immediately.
"Margaret, you don't mean it?"
"Don't tell me that I don't mean it when I know that I do. I went straight to my room when I left you----"
"That's only ten minutes ago."
"The first thing I saw when I entered my room was my jewel-case lying on the floor. I had clean forgotten all about what Rupert had said till I saw it; really, I am not sure that I quite believe the stories that those other women have been telling; but when I saw it--there, of all places--of course, I dashed at it and--Violet, it was open, and it was empty; practically all the Avonham jewels have been walked off with."
Her ladyship, flouncing down on to a chair, presented quite a charming picture of feminine agitation.
"So Rupert is right?"