Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/85

 six, I believe; but they say the poor lady had been dead more than an hour then."

"What have—they done with her—with the body? But oh, how awful, Terry, to be speaking of poor Milly as a 'body!'"

"They would have carried her home, I should say, madam," the butler volunteered an opinion.

"Poor Sir Ian!" mourned Mrs. Ricardo. "It will almost kill him. And to think of his being there with—with his murdered wife, alone. How he will miss Eric Forestier! He has no intimate friends since Eric died. I wish Norman were here."

"Yes," said Terry.

Maud stared reproachfully. "You hardly seem to sympathize at all!" she cried. "I suppose you're numbed by the shock."

"I suppose I am," the younger woman answered.

"We shan't sleep to-night," wailed Mrs. Ricardo. "I dread the long hours. Oh, how my head aches again. I feel as if there were a horrible tramp hidden under every bed in this house. If only they had caught the man, it would be a little better. Have they no suspicions, Dodson?"

"Well, madam, to tell the truth, Jennings brought in a very queer report from the village," the butler replied, half fearfully, half with a kind of gruesome joy in having something further of mystery and horror to report. There's a vague rumour that young Mr.