"Nay. He's dead. Shot right through 'is 'ead. It's a bad job."
She opened the door wider to receive him.
"Come in," said Mary.
Chapter XX
ABDICATION
"Ham, pie, cheese, bread, tarts, a custard and stewed apples. Well, I don't think we shall do so badly. Why didn't you roast a fowl and have done with it, Mary?"
At four o'clock in the morning Sarah Bannister faced Mary across the dining-room table with a smile of grim amusement. Mary looked up from the end of the table. She was abstractedly fingering one of her best netted doilies set under the ham in a moment of mental aberration by the red-eyed Violet.
"Well, I suppose I might have done that without such trouble. I'm afraid one or two have been roasted without any help from me." She laughed forlornly and pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen across her forehead.
"Where are the men?" asked Sarah.