CHAPTER XIX

A little while later, Alice, coming upstairs, found her mistress lying unconscious, and Timothy quite dead upon the bed. It was a shock to her, but Alice left to herself was somewhat phlegmatic, and, having lived with Marigold over five years, had got into the admirable habit of never being too surprised.

Timothy was dead, laid out peacefully upon the bed, just as when the Master put him there. For him nothing further could be done. With strange misgivings she turned to her mistress, kneeling down and turning her round towards the light.

A tiny stream of blood was running from a wound upon her throat--her face was white as death, and she unconscious. Alice brought water, smelling-salts, rubbed and chafed her hands, till gradually a little colour came to her cheeks, and the eyelids quivered. And suddenly she sat up with wild, open eyes, and her head turned in the direction of the picture. It had gone. Alice, looking too in the same direction, perceived its absence, and to her mind came the one thought “thieves”--thus accounting for the disorder in the little room. For, miraculously, she had never seen the doctor pass that morning, coming or going away; and if she had seen, she would never have connected him with this sight before her--she believed so in his humanity and kindliness.

But Marigold shivered, and then looked towards the bed, and Alice thought she would have fainted again. But instead, she staggered to her feet and put her hand in Alice’s arm, leaning heavily against her.

“Take me away from here,” she whispered huskily; “take me away.”

So Alice led her down the stairs and into their own tidy kitchen with the bright fire burning, and set her down beside it, and put the kettle on.

“I’ll make you some tea, and then you’ll feel better,” she said soothingly. “Nothing like something hot when you’re chill and faint.”

“You must go back and look to--to--to him, Alice. I am quite right now. Go and get somebody to look to him, and then come back again.”

So Alice, being commanded, went as she was told, and left Marigold alone.

And, when the door was shut, Marigold got up, still trembling, and crept towards the looking-glass. Her neck was bandaged with a handkerchief, and with trembling fingers she untied the clumsy knot, and there--yes, there--smarting and burning, was the torn wound, discolouring the shapely neck.

“What long finger-nails!” she said, and went back to her chair unevenly, and sat down in it. And then she laid her head against the back, and laughed--laughed and held her sides with laughing, unable to stop. And it was perhaps as well Alice was not there--or anybody, for it was worse than the most heartrending sobs.

When Alice returned, nearly an hour later, she found her mistress exhausted, yet feverish and restless, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes.

“Alice,” she said petulantly, “how soon you’re back. I don’t want you yet, I want to be all alone for a time. Go and tell Mrs Wiggs that her son is dead.”

“We don’t know where she’s working.”

“Number 7 Crescent Park. She must certainly be told at once.”

And Alice went out silently--apparently to go; but said she to herself when on the pavement:

“I’ll go for Mrs Wiggs, but I’ll go for Dr Quack as well. I won’t take the responsibility of her any longer. She’s nothing but a skeleton, and that colour’s worse than none.”

So saying, she hurried off in the direction of Marble House, sure of a sympathetic welcome.