But the anxiety in her eyes was growing.  “He isn’t here?” she questioned.

“No.”

“Then—­then I think I ought to go to him.  He will think it so strange.  He will—­he will—­”

“Lady Carfax, listen!” Quietly but insistently he broke in upon her rising agitation.  “Your husband knows all about you.  He couldn’t come to-night, but he is coming in the morning.  Now won’t you be content and try to sleep?”

“I can’t sleep,” she said, with a shudder.  “I am afraid of falling.”

“No, you’re not.  See!  I am holding your hands.  You can’t fall.  Look at me!  Keep looking at me and you will see how safe you are!”

His voice had sunk almost to a whisper.  His eyes dusky, compelling, yet strangely impersonal, held hers by some magic that was too utterly intangible to frighten her.  With a sigh she yielded to the mastery she scarcely felt.

And as she floated away into a peace indescribable, unlike anything she had ever known before, she heard a woman’s voice, hushed to a sibilant whisper, remark, “My, Nap!  You’re too smart to be human.  I always said so.”

When she opened her eyes again it was many hours later, and she was lying in the broad sunshine with the doctor, whom she knew, stooping over her.

“Ah, you are awake at last!” he said.  “And I find a marvellous improvement.  No, I shouldn’t try to move at present.  But I don’t suppose you can for a moment.  You have had a wonderful escape, my dear lady, a most wonderful escape.  But for all that I shall keep you where you are for the next fortnight or so.  A badly jarred spine is not a thing to play with.”

“Is that all?” Anne asked.

He became cautious on the instant.  “I don’t say that is all.  In any case we will run no risks.  Let me congratulate you upon having fallen into such good hands.”

He glanced over Anne’s head at someone on the other side of the bed, and Anne turned slightly to see the person thus indicated.  And so she had her first sight of the woman who ruled Lucas Errol’s house.

She had heard of her more than once.  People smiled, not unkindly, when they mentioned Mrs. Errol, a good sort, they said; but, like many another woman of inelegant exterior, how good a sort only her Maker knew.  She was large in every way.  It was the only word that described her; large-boned, large-featured, and so stout that she wheezed—­a fact which in no way limited her activity.  Her voice was as deep as a man’s, and it went even deeper when she laughed.

But she was not laughing now.  Her face was full of the most kindly concern.  “Lord bless the child!” she said.  “She don’t know me yet.  I’m Mrs. Errol, dear, Mrs. Lucas Blenheim Errol.  And if there’s anything you want—­well, you’ve only got to mention it to me and it’s as good as done.”

She spoke with a strong American accent.  A Yankee of the Yankees was Mrs. Errol, and she saw no reason to disguise the fact.  She knew that people smiled at her, but it made no difference to her.  She was content to let them smile.  She even smiled at herself.