“That’s a real lady for you,” gallantly remarked Ferret. “Now I’m off. Come downstairs if you want to see me out of the house—you suspicious young thing. No? All right. Thanks, but you really must sit in that little room, you know, for he may be leaving the house at any minute.”
“I’ll get my hat first,” replied Kate, “so that I can be ready to follow him if he goes out.”
Ferret slid noiselessly out of the library with a warning finger at his lips, and Kate congratulated herself upon having so cleverly deceived him. She would hide the parcel containing the surprise and then send word to the dining-room that she must see Mr. Fair at once.
She sat for a moment trying to think out the impressions which had been pouring in upon her in this hour of cataclysm and departure. What had brought the foreign gentleman to the house? What had he done to make him the subject of police suspicion? And why should Mr. Fair wish to protect him from the law? And—oh, how the thought came crushing back into her heart after being dislodged by the detective’s sudden appearance—of what crime had Mr. Fair spoken? The temporary calmness that the diversion had purchased for her gave way now to all the torment that had preceded it. Springing up to carry out her resolution—action being at all events less dreadful than idle horror—she took the parcel from the table, and going hurriedly across the room, lifted the lid of the old carved chest. She dropped the parcel into it—and fell.
Allyne had just elicited a laugh by one of his characterizations of a certain great personage, when the party at dinner heard a shriek that brought them all to their feet. Mr. and Mrs. Fair dashed upstairs with who can say what horror of expectancy in their minds. They found the governess lying beside the chest in the library. Fair acted promptly.
He heard the others running up the stairs, so as he raised Kate from the floor he said to Mrs. Fair; “Sit on the chest, Janet—never mind why—and do not rise from it until I get them all out of here. It is only Miss Mettleby, the governess—she has fainted,” he added as Mrs. March and Allyne entered followed by Travers.
“Oh, my dear Mrs. Fair, how pale you look—what has really happened?” asked Mrs. March anxiously.
“Miss Mettleby has had a bad turn—that’s all. Pray, all of you go,” replied Fair, for Mrs. Fair, with a white face and vacant look, sat as if unconscious of what passed.
“Allyne, take Mrs. March down, won’t you?” asked Travers, to relieve the situation, and then, after Allyne and Mrs. March were gone: “Is there nothing that I can do, Fair? My God, man, what does it all mean?”