"As far as any one can predict the future, Lady Ursula," I said, "the
contents of my Cousin Geoffrey Rutherford's letter will never be known
except to the two people who are already in possession of the secret."
"Who are they?"
"I am one, Mr Gray is the other. Think what you like about the letter,
Lady Ursula, you are never, never likely to know more of its contents
than you do at this moment."
Lady Ursula was a person largely blessed with the bump of curiosity, but
she was also a lady, and she knew when to stop.
Her face wore a blank, half-amused, half-indignant expression. Then
coming up to me she bent forward and kissed my forehead.
"I might have guessed I should have my drive for nothing," she said.
"Now then, to change the subject. Where did you get that fascinating
dress you wore last night?"
"The dress I wore last night was my mother's wedding-gown."
"Delicious! Who but Rosamund Lindley would have dared to appear in an
antiquated robe of that sort! My dear, your daring deserved its
success. Rupert declares that he thought his great-grandmother had
suddenly come into the room. His great-grandmother young and--and
beautiful."
I scarcely heard Lady Ursula's last words. I was standing by the window
watching a boy who was approaching the house. He was a telegraph boy,
and as he walked up the steps I saw him take a yellow envelope out of
the little bag fastened to his side. I knew even before the servant
brought it in, that that telegram was for me. I also knew that it
contained bad tidings. My heart sank low in my breast.
Lady Ursula's gay, high voice kept rambling on. I ceased to hear a word
she was saying. The drawing-room door was opened. The neat
parlour-maid walked up the long apartment. She held out a silver
salver, with the telegram lying on it.
"For you, miss," she said. "And the boy is waiting to know if there is
any answer."
The contents of the telegram were brief and emphatic.
"Your mother is very ill; come home at once."
My father had dictated that telegram. I raised a cold, white face to
Lady Ursula's.
"Good-bye," I said. "This explains why I must leave you." I put the
telegram into her hand and rushed out of the room. I am not quite sure
to this day whether I bid the kind Grays good-bye. I know that somehow
or other I found myself in a cab, and in some fashion I caught an early
train, and reached home in the bright spring sunshine before the day had
half travelled through its course.
Even our ugly garden showed faint traces of the resurrection of all
things. A stunted lilac-tree was putting out buds. An almond-tree was
adorning itself in a hazy pink robe. There was a faint, tender perfume
of violets in the air. I turned the handle of the shabby little
front-door and went in.
If spring had given tokens of its presence outside, however, it had
printed no fairy footfall inside our ugly and desolate little home.
Inside there was close air, confusion, untidiness; but there was also
something else--supreme terror, a dark fear. The shadow of this fear
sat on my father's brow. He hurried to meet me the moment I set foot
inside the threshold; his face was unkempt, unwashed, his eyes
bloodshot; he held out a trembling hand, and grasped my shoulder.
"Thank heaven you have come, Rose," he said.
"How is mother?" I managed to gasp.
My father's painful clutch on my shoulder grew harder and firmer.
"Come in here," he said. He dragged me into the drawing-room, and
softly closed the door. "Listen," he said; "yesterday night your
mother's cough grew worse; this morning she broke a blood-vessel."
"Then she is dying," I said in a voice of terror.
"No, she shan't die--you have got to save her!"
"I? Father--father--how can I?"
"Don't prevaricate--don't look me in the face, and tell lies at this
moment. Dr Johnson and Dr Keith, from London, are both up-stairs.
They will tell you what you have to do. Go to them; obey their
directions. There is not a moment to be lost."
My father's trembling hand still held my shoulder; he emphasised his
words with cruel pinches. I wrenched myself away with a sudden effort.
"You hurt me when you hold me like that," I said.
"Who cares whether I hurt you or not, child? it's your mother's life
that hangs in the balance. What matter about _you_--what are _you_? Go
up-stairs to the doctors. Listen to their directions and obey them."