Chapter Twenty-SixMiss Silver came along the passage from her room and stopped at Caroline Ponsonby’s door. She turned the handle noiselessly, and was aware of a curtained dusk, and silence. These were expected. She pushed the door an inch or two and listened for the sound of measured breathing. But it was a very different sound which broke the silence. Miss Silver’s hand closed hard upon the knob, for what she heard was Richard Treherne speaking in a tone of agony.
‘Caroline! Caroline! Caroline!’
Miss Silver stood where she was for a moment. Then she pushed the door a little wider and looked round it. Caroline lay on her bed with her face half hidden in the pillow, whilst Richard, on his knees beside her, buried his face in his hands and groaned.
As a gentlewoman, the thought of eavesd
