She half closed her eyes. A queer little spasm twisted her lips apart.
“Yes,” she said unsteadily, “yes, he shot himself.”
“Are you going in to tell her now, Frieda?”
“I must have a little time,--just a little, dear. I am more shaken than you think. I must have time to collect myself. It will be very difficult, Davenport. Stay here. Do not come unless I call to you.”
“I leave it all to you, Frieda,--God bless you and God give you strength.”
The door closed behind her. He sat motionless for a long time, wondering whether he could hear her call to him with that door and doubtless another intervening. Strange that she should have closed it. He would wait a little while,--a few minutes only,--and then he would open it and--listen.
She went straight to her own room.... Presently she lifted the telephone receiver from the hook. The next moment she replaced it, but did not release it from her tense fingers.
She sat rigid, staring at the instrument, resolve and indecision struggling for mastery. At last she pushed the instrument away and sank back in the chair as if exhausted.
|THE doctor arrived at eight. He could not afford to disregard the summons of such a man as Davenport Carstairs. So he told his wife to go on to the Opera without him; he would join her as soon as possible,--in fact, it might be possible to get there before the overture was ended, or, at the very latest, soon after the curtain went up. Make his apologies, and all that. This was an urgent case.
Close on his heels came two men to see Mr. Carstairs....
Miss Hansbury was in a pitiable condition. For the better part of two hours, Frieda Carstairs had been with her. Every one else, not excepting her uncle, was denied admission to the room. From time to time, the sound of voices came through the closed door,--one shrill and rising to the pitch of frenzy, the other firm, gentle, soothing--one that seemed to croon. A sharp-eared listener outside would have caught an occasional sentence wailed in the despairing treble, but he would have made little of it, for it dwindled away into a smothered, inarticulate jumble of words. He might have distinguished the oft-repeated cry: “You know it isn't true! You know it! You know it!”