Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/128

 probably would have fainted; but the malice in them was like a douche of cold water. If she fainted, all she had said might go for nothing. People, seeing her emotion, would misread it. They would think she had lied to save Sir Ian. And she hadn't lied, hadn't lied. She would have lied, perhaps, but it hadn't been necessary.

Maud slipped a tiny bottle of smelling salts into Terry's hand, but she would not use it. By and by she grew better. Some one came to ask, politely, if she and all the other women witnesses would prefer to go out before the farmer, Thomas Barnard, and the doctors, should be called, for details unpleasant to the fastidious feminine ear were apparently expected to come out. There would be talk of blood and other disagreeables.

Suddenly it occurred to Miss Ricardo that Miss Verney had not yet been called; and this somewhat surprised her.