"We had better go in and see that all's right," at length spoke Phemie, who had perhaps a shade more thought than the rest, "She may have frighted her into a fit."
At that moment the parlour door was opened, and the gipsy came out. Shutting the door behind her, she strode through the kitchen without a word to the frightened group standing there, let herself out of the house, and departed by the shrubbery, as she had come.
The servants gazed into each other's faces in silence. Then, as with one accord, they opened the parlour door, and peeped in.
Dorothy Stone had her head bent on the table beside the tea-tray, and was sobbing tears, dreadful to hear, of fright, distress, and pain.
[CHAPTER X.]
THE TRUTH AT LAST
It was a lovely January morning sunny but cold, as the ladies sat around the breakfast-table at Heron Dyke. Miss Winter scarcely spoke a word during the meal, and scarcely touched a mouthful; she seemed buried in thought.
"What is the matter with you, Ella?" asked Mrs. Carlyon, noticing this. "Surely you are not going to be ill!"
"I was never better in all my life, Aunt Gertrude, than I am this morning," answered Ella, with her sweet, serious smile. "Only I do not seem to be in the humour for talking."
"Nor for eating either, apparently," said Mrs. Carlyon with a shake of her cap-strings. "I don't like the symptoms; and if you have not recovered your appetite at luncheon I shall think it time to send for Dr. Spreckley." At which Ella laughed.