No, though; it was a procession of camels crossing the desert, and in the distance was an oasis surrounded by palms, and there was white stonework gleaming between the trees in the wonderful light. And those great doors that opened from within? They were opening although she had not knocked. She was expected, then—there, where there was no more weariness, nor care, nor hunger. But that was not where she wished to go. No! no! that did not tempt her.
"Take me where I shall not remember," she implored.
Poor Beth! the one boon she had to ask of Heaven at five-and-twenty was oblivion: "Let me be where I shall forget."
Downstairs on the doorstep, Ethel Maud Mary and Gwendolen lingered a while before they turned to follow Beth into the house, and, as they did so, they noticed that a lady had stopped her carriage in the middle of the road, jumped out impetuously, and was running towards them, regardless of the traffic.
"That was Mrs. Maclure who was standing with you here just now and went into the house?" she exclaimed.
"Miss Maclure," Ethel Maud Mary corrected her.
"Oh, Miss or Mrs., what does it matter?" the lady cried. "It was Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure looking like death—where is she? Take me to her at once!" She emphasised the request with an imperious stamp of her foot.
A few minutes later, Angelica, kneeling on the attic floor beside Beth, cried aloud in horror, "Why, she is dead!"