CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXStacy was waiting in the hall. She wanted to see Charles—she wanted to see him dreadfully. There was something going on, she didn’t quite know what. Nobody told her anything, but she could feel all the things they were thinking, and it seemed to her that these things were becoming more frightening with every hour that passed. It was like being down below in a ship overtaken by a storm—you couldn’t see anything, you didn’t know what was happening, but you felt the shock of the waves, and you could hear the wind rising. Things had been happening. Myra’s voice had risen and risen behind her closed door, and then fallen suddenly silent. Hester had come out of the room looking like a trampled ghost. Then Lady Minstrell had gone in, and the voice had begun all over again until
