— 24 —She wondered what would happen, perhaps nothing. How intolerable this waiting was! She wished that she were free of it all, away across the sea, or in that enchanted landscape that the painter had evoked for her, that he had painted on the walls of the round room in Lyndbridge House … always this waiting. Would it look better to undress? Probably, though the hour was still early; she began, standing in the dark, to unbutton her light gray bodice.
Then she thought that she should light the lamp lest it would look odd, and had hardly set the small flame in the rosy crystal globe when there was an urgent knock at her door. Mrs. Sacret stood silent and Curtis entered, evidently frightened from her grim face.
“Oh, ma’am, the master is taken very ill!”
“One of his usual attacks, I suppo
