CHAPTER XVI.

‘HER FACE RESIGNED TO BLISS OR BALE.’

Lady Mary and the Fraeulein had been sitting in the drawing-room all this time waiting for Lady Maulevrier to come to tea.  They heard her come in from the garden; and then the footman told them that she was in the library with a stranger.  Not even the muffled sound of voices penetrated the heavy velvet curtain and the thick oak door.  It was only by the loud ringing of the bell and the sound of footsteps in the hall that Lady Mary knew of the guest’s departure.  She went to the door between the two rooms, and was surprised to find it bolted.

‘Grandmamma, won’t you come to tea?’ she asked timidly, knocking on the oaken panel, but there was no reply.

She knocked again, and louder.  Still no reply.

‘Perhaps her ladyship is going to take tea in her own room,’ she said, afraid to be officious.

Attendance upon her grandmother at afternoon tea had been one of Lesbia’s particular duties; but Mary felt that she was an unwelcome substitute for Lesbia.  She wanted to get a little nearer her grandmother’s heart if she could; but she knew that her attentions were endured rather than liked.

She went into the hall, where the footman on duty was staring at the light snowflakes dancing past the window, perhaps wishing he were a snowflake himself, and enjoying himself in that white whirligig.

‘Is her ladyship having tea in the morning-room?’ asked Mary.

The footman gave a little start, as if awakened out of a kind of trance.  The sheer vacuity of his mind might naturally slide into mesmeric sleep.

He told Lady Mary that her ladyship had not left the library, and Mary went in timidly, wondering why her grandmother had not joined them in the drawing-room when the stranger was gone.

The sky was dark outside the wide windows, white hills and valleys shrouded in the shades of night.  The library was only lighted by the glow of the logs on the hearth, and in that ruddy light the spacious room looked empty.  Mary was turning to go away, thinking the footman had been mistaken, when her eye suddenly lighted upon a dark figure lying on the ground.  And then she heard an awful stertorous breathing, and knew that her grandmother was lying there, stricken and helpless.

Mary shrieked aloud, with a cry that pierced curtains and doors, and brought Fraeulein and half-a-dozen servants to her help.  One of the men brought a lamp, and among them they lifted the smitten figure.  Oh, God! how ghastly the face looked in the lamplight!—­the features drawn to one side, the skin livid.

‘Her ladyship has had a stroke,’ said the butler.

‘Is she dying?’ faltered Mary, white as ashes.  ’Oh, grandmother, dear grandmother, don’t look at us like that!’

One of the servants rushed off to the stables to send for the doctor.  Of course, being an indoor man, he no more thought of going out himself into the snowy night on such an errand than Noah thought of going out of the ark to explore the face of the waters in person.