Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/83

 "It was all over the village, madam. Mrs. Barnard, from the home farm at Riding Wood, had sent a man on her bicycle for the doctor and the police."

"Why Mrs. Barnard?" asked Maud, who had no idea of fainting now.

"It seems, madam, that Sir Ian Hereward himself found the body, and came down to the farm looking for Barnard, who used to serve under him, if you remember, madam"

It struck Maud that Terry's arm round her waist became suddenly rigid, like a slim bar of iron, then relaxed and fell limp; but she was too intensely excited to think much about Terry just then.

"Sir Ian found her—dead! How dreadful!"

"I believe he got anxious because her ladyship didn't return from a walk, and went out to look for her."

Mrs. Ricardo leapt into the loosened girdle of Terry's arm, and turned to stare at her.

"Oh!" she gasped, shuddering. "You were at the house, waiting for her, and all the while she was lying murdered. Now you mustn't faint, Terry!"

"I won't faint," the other answered, in a dull, tired tone. "Don't think about me."

"I can't think about anybody or anything but Milly," said Mrs. Ricardo, entirely unconscious that she was thinking mostly about herself. "Oh, how it frightens one! It makes one feel as if we were all murdered. Dodson, have they an idea who did it?"