For a second the girl’s heart stopped beating. The next moment she could have cried aloud with joy. Rosamond had not even fainted; but, as she raised herself and Baby saw the face that was turned to her, the girl realised that here was hardly an occasion for thanksgiving; and her own lips, trembling upon a tremendous announcement, were struck silent. "Oh, my poor darling!" cried she, catching the stricken woman in her arms, "what is it?" With a moan, as of physical pain, Rosamond’s head dropped on her niece’s shoulder. "You’re cold, you’re worn out," said the girl. "Those dreadful letters, and this place like an ice-house! Aunt Rosamond, darling——" She chafed the cold hands vigorously as she spoke. "You must be starved, too. Oh, and I don’t know how to tell you! Let me bring you down to your own room—there’s tea waiting for you, and such a fire! Aunt Rosamond, you must rouse yourself. Here, I’ll put these papers by." The one thing that could stir Rosamond from her torpor of misery was this. "Don’t touch them," she said. Her toneless voice seemed to come from depths far distant. She laid her wasted hands over the scattered sheets, drawing them together to her bosom; and then, on her knees, fell again into the former state of oblivion of all but her absorbing pain. Frenzied with impatience and the urgency for action, Baby now blurted out the news which the sight of Lady Gerardine’s drawn countenance caused her to withhold: "Runkle’s come!" The woman kneeling half turned her head. A change passed over her rigid countenance. "Yes; Runkle’s here," went on Baby, ruthlessly, raising her voice as if speaking to the deaf. "Uncle Arthur is here; he has come over in a motor—a party of them. Aunt Rosamond, your husband is here." A long shudder shook the kneeling figure. It was as if life returned to its work; and, returning, trembled in nausea from the task before it. A deep sullen colour began to creep into Lady Gerardine’s white cheek. She bent over the gaping box and dropped into it her armful of papers. Then she looked over her shoulder at Aspasia, and drew down the lid. "My husband! ... My husband is dead," she said. The girl’s blood ran cold. Had the hidden terror taken shape at last? The words were mad enough; yet it was the fierce light in Rosamond’s eyes that seemed most to signal danger. But Aspasia was not timid, and she was not imaginative. And Lady Gerardine’s next action, the cry which escaped her lips, at once pierced to every tender helpful instinct of the girl’s heart, and banished the paralysing fear. "Oh, Baby," cried she, springing to her feet and stretching out her arms in hopeless appeal, "what have I done? What is to become of me?" Once more Baby’s arms were about her. Baby, great in the emergency, was pouring forth consolation, expostulation, counsel.