Molly looked a little dazed, and the “Thank you” of her clear low voice was mechanical.

“I was just coming for a few minutes’ walk in the wood.”

Rose’s voice was very rich in inflection, and now it sounded like a caress.

“But I wonder if it is late?  I think I have forgotten the time, it is all so beautiful.”

She laid her hand for a moment on Molly’s arm.

“It is very late,” said Edmund with decision, but without consulting his watch on the point.

They all moved quickly, and while making their way back to the Castle Rose and Edmund talked of Lord and Lady Groombridge, and Molly walked silently beside them.

CHAPTER X

THE PET VICE

“May I come in?”

At the same moment the door was half opened, and Lady Groombridge, in a heavy, dark-coloured gown, made her way in, with the swish of a long, silk train.  She half opened the door with an air of mystery, and she closed it softly while she held her flat silver candlestick in her hand as if she wished she could conceal it, yet the oil lamps were still burning in the gallery behind her.  The appearance of the wish for concealment was merely the unconscious expression of her mental condition at the moment.

Two women looked up in surprise as she made this unconsciously dramatic entrance into her guest’s bedroom.  Lady Rose was sitting in front of the uncurtained window in a loose, white dressing-gown, lifting a mass of her golden hair with her hair brush.  She had been talking eagerly, but vaguely, before her hostess came in, in order to conceal the fact that she wished intensely to be allowed to go to bed.

Lady Rose made many such minor sacrifices on the altar of charity, and she was sorry for the tall, thin, mysterious girl who, at first almost impossibly stiff and cold, had volunteered a visit to her room to-night.  It was only a very few who were ever asked to come into Rose’s room, and she had hastily covered the miniature of her dead husband in his uniform with her small fan before she admitted Molly.

By some strange impulse, Molly had attached herself to Rose during the rest of that Easter Sunday.  Curiosity, admiration, or jealousy might have accounted for Molly’s doing this.  To herself it seemed merely part of her determination to face the position without fear or fancies.  If Lady Rose found out later with whom she had spent those hours, at least she should not think that Molly had been embarrassed.  Perhaps, too, Sir Edmund’s efforts to keep them apart made her more anxious to be with her.

Having been kindly welcomed to Rose’s room, Molly found herself slightly embarrassed; they seemed to have used up all common topics during the day, and Molly was certainly not prepared to be confidential.

The entrance of the hostess came as a relief.  That lady, without glancing at Rose or Molly as she came into the middle of the room, banged the candlestick down on a small table, and then threw herself into an arm-chair, which gave a creak of sympathy in response to her loud sigh.