“Brother!” cried Diana. She sprang toward him. But hastily, even roughly, Rockhurst thrust her on one side, and the boy collapsed into the nearest chair. Whereupon Lionel, coming forward with his usual coolness, ran his fingers, with a movement the sinister significance of which most people had learned to interpret these days, under the fair curls of the bent head, feeling behind the ears. “Pshaw—’tis nothing!… Sheer poltroonery,” cried he, and laughed loudly, and struck his cousin’s hunched shoulders with no gentle hand. “Art a pretty fellow to come thus, bellowing like a calf, into the presence of ladies!” “Curse it!” moaned the lad. “I have just knocked against two women carrying a coffin! They howled like sick cats.” Sinking his head on his hands once more, he rocked himself backward and forward. “Oh, this wicked London! Oh, the judgment of God!” “Edward!” cried Lady Chillingburgh imperiously. Her voice dominated the horrified whispers of Sir John and Foulkes, Madame de Mantes’s hysterical cries, young Edward’s obtrusive groans. But there was a force stronger than her in her house that night. Sir John Farringdon unceremoniously poured himself a bumper of wine, drank it hastily, his eye on the door toward which Foulkes was already uneasily edging. Madame de Mantes, who had been sobbing out inarticulate words in her own tongue, broke into babbling laughter. Edward sprang to his feet, thrusting aside his cousin’s restraining hand. “I will speak! Grandam shall hear the truth at last! ’Tis everywhere! Every one is getting it! Lord Marsham, ill at noon, dead at four! Mistress Hill, well yesterday, buried to-night!” “I command you to silence, Edward!” The quavering voice rose high, catching painfully at lost authority; the palsied hand aimed a feeble blow at the table. “Why must we stay, because of the old woman’s whimsy?” continued the boy in fury. “Zounds! I go to-night, and sister with me. D’ye hear, grandam! I’m only come here to get the travel money from you, and I’ll have it. I’ll go, and sister with me!” But the aged queen was not yet dethroned. Her spirit asserted itself in a supreme effort. Life seemed to come back to her paralysed limbs; she flung out one hand in a gesture of authority; this time it scarce trembled. “Diana, your brother is drunk. I order him to be expelled. Mr. Foulkes, the game is not concluded; resume your seat!” She broke off. Sir John Farringdon had made a sudden unmannerly dash from the room. Foulkes stood at command with a sickly smile; but his friend’s example, the open passage, were too much for him; stealthily the door closed upon his retreat. Only by a rigid aversion of her head did Lady Chillingburgh betray her knowledge of this double defection.