The room into which she admitted herself presented exactly the picture she had expected.  The curtains, again of richly colored cretonne, were drawn, a softly toned lamp on the reading table, and another beside the bed, cast circles of pleasant light on the comfortable wicker chairs, the cream-colored woodwork, and the scattered books and magazines.  Several photographs of Carol, beautifully framed, were on bookcase and dresser, and a fine oil painting of the child at fourteen looked down from the mantel.  On the bed, a mahogany four-poster, with carved pineapples finishing the posts, the frilled cretonne cover had been flung back; Mr. Breckenridge had retired; his blond head was sunk in the pillows; he clutched the blankets about him with his arms, his face was not visible.

A quiet manservant, who was by turns butler, chauffeur, and valet, was stepping softly about the room.  Rachael interrogated him in a low tone: 

“Asleep, Alfred?”

“Oh, no, ma’am!” the man said quickly.  “He’s been feeling ill.  He says he has a chill.”

“When did he get home?” the wife asked.

“About half an hour ago, Mrs. Breckenridge.  Mr. Butler telephoned me.  Some of the gentlemen were going on—­to one of the beach hotels for dinner, I believe, but Mr. Breckenridge felt himself too unwell to join them, so I went for him with the little car, and Mr. Joe Butler and Mr. Parks came home with him, Mrs. Breckenridge.”

“Do you know if he went to bed last night at all?”

“No, ma’am, he said he did not.  All the gentlemen looked as if they—­looked as if they might have—­” Alfred hesitated delicately.  “It was Mr. Berry Stokes’ bachelor dinner,” he presently added.

At this moment there was a convulsion in the bed, and the red face of Clarence Breckenridge revealed itself.  The eyes were bloodstained, the usually pale skin flushed and oily, the fair, thin hair tumbled across a high and well-developed forehead.  Rachael knew every movement of the red and swollen lips, every tone of the querulous voice.

“Does Alfred have to stay up here doing a chambermaid’s work?” demanded the man of the house fretfully.  “My God!  Can you or can’t you manage—­between your teas and card parties—­to get someone else to put this room in order?” He ended in a long moan, and dropped his head again into the pillows.

“Do you know what he wants?” Rachael asked the man in a quick whisper.  “Go down and get it, then!”

“I’m co-o-old!” said the man in the bed, going into a sudden and violent chill.  “I’ve caught my death, I think.  Joe made a punch—­ some sort of an eggnog—­eggs were bad, I think.  I’m poisoned.  The stuff was rotten!” He sank mumbling back into the pillows.

Rachael, who had been hanging his coat carefully in the big closet adjoining his room, came to the bedside and laid her cool fingers on his burning forehead.  If irrepressible distaste was visible in her face, it was only a faint reflection of the burning resentment in her heart.