She snuffled.

In the dining-room I went at once to the window to draw up the blinds.

‘Not that, not that!’ Rebecca appealed, weeping.  ‘For pity’s sake!’ And she caught my hand.

I then noticed that Lucy was standing in the doorway, also weeping.  Rebecca noticed this too.

‘Lucy, you go to your kitchen this minute,’ she said sharply, and then turned to me and began to cry again.  ‘Miss Peel—­how can I tell you?’

‘Why do you call me Miss Peel?’ I asked her.

But I knew why.  The thing flashed over me instantly.  My dear aunt was dead.

‘You’ve got no aunt,’ said Rebecca.  ’My poor dear!  And you at the concert!’

I dropped my head and my bosom on the bare mahogany table and cried.  Never before, and never since, have I spilt such tears—­hot, painful drops, distilled plenteously from a heart too crushed and torn.

‘There, there!’ muttered Rebecca.  ’I wish I could have told you different—­less cruel; but it wasn’t in me to do it.’

‘And she’s lying upstairs this very moment all cold and stiff,’ a wailing voice broke in.

It was Lucy, who could not keep herself away from us.

‘Will you go to your kitchen, my girl!’

Rebecca drove her off.  ’And the poor thing’s not stiff either.  Her poor body’s as soft as if she was only asleep, and doctor says it will be for a day or two.  It’s like that when they’re took off like that, he says.  Oh, Miss Carlotta—­’

‘Tell me all about it before I go upstairs,’ I said.

I had recovered.

‘Your poor aunt went to bed just as soon as you were gone, miss,’ said Rebecca.  ’She would have it she was quite well, only tired.  I took her up a cup of cocoa at ten o’clock, and she seemed all right, and then I sends Lucy to bed, and I sits up in the kitchen to wait for you.  Not a sound from your poor aunt.  I must have dropped asleep, miss, in my chair, and I woke up with a start like, and the kitchen clock was near on one.  Thinks I, perhaps Miss Carlotta’s been knocking and ringing all this time and me not heard, and I rushes to the front door.  But of course you weren’t there.  The porch was nothing but a pool o’ water.  I says to myself she’s stopping somewhere, I says.  And I felt it was my duty to go and tell your aunt, whether she was asleep or whether she wasn’t asleep....  Well, and there she was, miss, with her eyes closed, and as soft as a child.  I spoke to her, loud, more than once.  “Miss Carlotta a’n’t come,” I says.  “Miss Carlotta a’n’t come, ma’am,” I says.  She never stirred.  Thinks I, this is queer this is.  And I goes up to her and touches her.  Chilly!  Then I takes the liberty of pushing back your poor aunt’s eyelids, and I could but see the whites of her eyes; the eyeballs was gone up, and a bit outwards.  Yes; and her poor dear chin was dropped.  Thinks I, here’s trouble, and Miss Carlotta at the concert.  I runs to our bedroom, and I tells Lucy to put a cloak on