"Do just as you like about dressing," she said. "I expect you're tired."
She could bear it no more. She went out without another word, passed steadily across the length of the landing to her own room, locked the door, and threw herself on her knees.
III
She was roused by a tap on the door—how much later she did not know. But the agony was passed for the present—the repulsion and the horror of what she had seen. Perhaps it was that she did not yet understand the whole truth. But at least her will was dominant; she was as a man who has fought with fear alone, and walks, white and trembling, yet perfectly himself, to the operating table.
She opened the door; and Susan stood there with a candle in one hand and a scrap of white in the other.
"For you, miss," said the maid.
Maggie took it without a word, and read the name and the penciled message twice.
"Just light the lamp out here," she said. "Oh ... and, by the way, send Charlotte to Mrs. Baxter at once."
"Yes, miss..."
The maid still paused, eyeing her, as if with an unspoken question. There was terror too in her eyes.