Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/82

 to know, and would wish to be told, and I hoped by waiting till after dinner"

"Yes, yes; I'm sure Mrs. Ricardo will think you did right," Terry reassured him. The brandy, please, as quickly as possible."

By the time the butler had returned with a decanter, Maud was so much herself again that curiosity had conquered horror. She thought it rather hard-hearted of Terry to take the hideous news so quietly, for long ago she and Milly Hereward had been intimate friends. Poor Milly! Dead! She could not make it seem true, and said so. Milly was not at all the sort of woman to be murdered. And that afternoon! No, it couldn't, couldn't be true. It was hardly decent.

"Drink this, dear," said Terry, so gently that to Maud her voice sounded cold. After all, she thought, Southern women felt far more than others. The mellow old brandy did Maud good. Her heart grew warm again, and her tongue was loosed.

"Tell us everything, Dodson," she directed, as the butler lingered uncertainly, not sure whether it was desirable to go, or wait to be dismissed. "Are you sure some one hasn't made up a horrid cock-and-bull story?"

"Only too sure, madam. Everybody knew already. Jennings heard the news at Riding St. Mary. He'd taken some letters to post, from the servants' hall"

"I don't care why he went. Who told him?"