The countess went out of the room, and found her maid in the hall.
The woman whispered a few words that caused Lady Angleford to turn pale
and stand gazing before her as if she had suddenly seen a ghost.
"Very well," she said.
The maid hurried upstairs, but the countess stood for quite half a
minute, still pale, and gazing into vacancy.
Then she went back to the drawing-room, and, with a mechanical smile,
passed among the guests until she reached Drake, who was talking to the
duke and Lord Northgate.
"You want me, countess?" he said, feeling her eyes fixed on him, and he
followed her to a clear space.
"Drake," she said, lifting her eyes to his face pitifully, "Drake,
something dreadful has happened--something dreadful. I don't like to
tell you, but I must. She is here!"
She whispered the announcement as if it were indeed something dreadful.
Drake looked at her in a mystified fashion.
"She! Who?" he asked.
"Luce!"
He did not start, but his brows came together, and his face grew stern,
for the first time since his reconciliation to Nell.
"Luce!" he echoed. "Impossible!"
"Oh, but she is!" she murmured, in despair. "She arrived a quarter of an
hour ago."
"But I wrote, telling her," he muttered helplessly.
The countess made a despairing gesture.
"Then she did not get your letter. She sent a telegram this morning,
saying that she was able, unexpectedly, to come, but I have not had it.
And if I had received it, there would not have been time to prevent her
coming." She glanced at the slim, girlish figure of Nell, where it
stood, the center of a group, and almost groaned. "What shall we do?"
At such times a man is indeed helpless, and Drake stood overwhelmed and
idealess.
"She says that we are not to wait--that she will come down when she is
dressed. She--she----Oh, Drake! she does not know, and she will think
that--that you still--that she----"
He nodded.
"I know. But I am thinking of Nell," he said grimly. "Luce must be told.
She--yes, she must go away again. She will, when she knows the truth."
"But--but who is to tell her?" said the poor countess, aghast at the
prospect before her.
Drake shook his head.
"Not you, countess. I will tell her."
"You, Drake!"
"Yes--I," he said, biting his lips. "She found little difficulty in
telling me, there at Shorne Mills----No, no; I ought not to have said
that. But I am anxious to spare Nell, and my anxiety makes me hard. Wait
a moment."