Page:Phillpotts - The Grey Room (Macmillan, 1921).djvu/62

Rh "Let us in at once, Tom, please! I am much annoyed! If this is a jest, it has gone far enough—and too far! I blame you severely!"

But none replied. Absolute silence held the Grey Room.

Then came the footman with a frail of tools. The task could not be performed in a moment, and Sir Walter, desirous above all things to create no uneasiness at the breakfast-table, determined to go down again. But he was too late, for his daughter had already suspected something. She was not anxious but puzzled that her husband tarried. She came up the stairs with a letter.

"I'm going to find Tom," she said. "It's not like him to be so lazy. Here's a letter from the ship, and I'm awfully afraid he may have to go back."

"Mary," said her father, "come here a moment."

He drew her under a great window which threw light into the corridor.

"You must summon your nerve and pluck, my girl! I'm very much afraid that something has gone amiss with Tom. I know nothing yet, but last night, it seems, after we had gone to bed, he and Henry determined that one of them should sleep in the Grey Room."

"Father! Was he there, and I so near him—sleeping in the very next room?"

"He was there—and is there. He is not well. Henry saw him looking out of the window five minutes ago, but he was, I fear, unconscious."

"Let me go to him," she said.