"I see," said Gwen. "You want to make Mrs. Picture a new table-leg, and you can't do it without opening her desk. And you can't get the key from her without saying why you want it. Isn't that it?" Universal assent. "Very well, then! You get the lock opened, and I'll take everything out with my own hands, and keep it safe for Mrs. Picture when she comes back."
This proposal was welcomed with only one reservation. None but a real live locksmith could open a lock, any more than one who is not born a turncock can release the waters that are under the earth through an unexplained hole in the road. It was, however, all within the province of the young man in the trade, who had not vanished when the vision appeared, in spite of those pressing appointments. He would go back to the shop, and send, or bring, a properly qualified operative.
Pending which, an adjournment to the little parlour below, out of all this mess, seemed desirable. Dave and Dolly were, of course, part of this, but Mrs. Burr remained upstairs after answering inquiries about her own health, and Mr. Alibone went away with the young man in search of the locksmith.
Gwen had to account for her sudden appearance. "I'm sorry to have bad news to tell you about my cousin, Miss Grahame," said she, so seriously that both her grown-up hearers spoke under their breaths to begin asking:—"She's not...?"—the rest being easily understood. Gwen replied:—"Oh no, she's not dead. But she's in the doctor's hands." Uncle Mo looked as though he thought this was nearly as bad, and Aunt M'riar was so expressive in sympathy without words that both the children became appalled, and Dolly looked inclined to cry. Gwen continued:—"She has caught a horrible fever in a dreadful place where she went to see poor people, and nobody can say yet a while what will happen. It is Typhus Fever, I'm afraid."
As Gwen uttered the deadly syllables, Uncle Mo turned away to the window, leaving some exclamation truncated. Aunt M'riar's voice became tremulous on the beginning of an unfinished sentence, and Dolly concealed a disposition to weep, because she was afraid of what Dave would say after. That young man remained stoical, but did not speak.
Presently Uncle Mo turned from the window, and said, somewhat huskily:—"I wish some of these here poor people, as they call themselves, would either go away to Aymericay, or keep their premises a bit cleaner; nobody wants 'em here that ever I've heard tell of, only Phlarnthropists."
Aunt M'riar's unfinished sentence had begun with "Gracious mercy!..." Its sequel:—"Well now—to think of a lady like that! My word! And Typhus Fever, too!"—was dependent on it, and contained an element of resignation to Destiny.
Dave struck in with irrelevant matter; as he frequently did, to throw side-lights on obscurities. "The boy at the School had fever, and came out sported all over with sports he was. You couldn't have told him from any other boy." That the other boy would be similarly spotted was, of course, understood.
Having broken the news, Gwen went on to minimise its seriousness; a time-honoured method, perhaps the best one. "Dr. Dalrymple is cheerful enough about her at present, so we mustn't be frightened. He says only very old persons never recover, and that a young woman like my cousin is quite as likely to live as to die...."
Uncle Mo caught her up with sudden shrewdness. "Then she's quite as likely to die as to live?" said he.