“We must remember that we have only excited rumour to depend upon,” she said.  “Lord Mount Dunstan has kept his village under almost military law.  He has put it into quarantine.  No one is allowed to leave it, so there can be no direct source of information.  One cannot be sure of the entire truth of what one hears.  Often it is exaggerated cottage talk.  The whole neighbourhood is wrought up to a fever heat of excited sympathy.  And villagers like the drama of things.”

Mrs. Brent looked at her admiringly, it being her fixed habit to admire Miss Vanderpoel, and all such as Providence had set above her.

“Oh, how wise you are, Miss Vanderpoel!” she exclaimed, even devoutly.  “It is so nice of you to be calm and logical when everybody else is so upset.  You are quite right about villagers enjoying the dramatic side of troubles.  They always do.  And perhaps things are not so bad as they say.  I ought not to have let myself believe the worst.  But I quite broke down under the ringers—­I was so touched.”

“The ringers?” faltered Lady Anstruthers

“The leader came to the vicar to tell him they wanted permission to toll—­if they heard tolling at Dunstan.  Weaver’s family lives within hearing of Dunstan church bells, and one of his boys is to run across the fields and bring the news to Stornham.  And it was most touching, Miss Vanderpoel.  They feel, in their rustic way, that Lord Mount Dunstan has not been treated fairly in the past.  And now he seems to them a hero and a martyr—­or like a great soldier who has died fighting.”

“Who may die fighting,” broke from Miss Vanderpoel sharply.

“Who—­who may——­” Mrs. Brent corrected herself, “though Heaven grant he will not.  But it was the ringers who made me feel as if all really was over.  Thank you, Miss Vanderpoel, thank you for being so practical and—­and cool.”

“It was touching,” said Lady Anstruthers, her eyes brimming over again.  “And what the villagers feel is true.  It goes to one’s heart,” in a little outburst.  “People have been unkind to him!  And he has been lonely in that great empty place—­he has been lonely.  And if he is dying to-day, he is lonely even as he dies—­even as he dies.”

Betty drew a deep breath.  For one moment there seemed to rise before her vision of a huge room, whose stately size made its bareness a more desolate thing.  And Mr. Penzance bent low over the bed.  She tore her thought away from it.

“No!  No!” she cried out in low, passionate protest.  “There will be love and yearning all about him everywhere.  The villagers who are waiting—­the poor things he has worked for—­the very ringers themselves, are all pouring forth the same thoughts.  He will feel even ours—­ours too!  His soul cannot be lonely.”

A few minutes earlier, Mrs. Brent had been saying to herself inwardly:  “She has not much heart after all, you know.”  Now she looked at her in amazement.