“Who did it?” she asked, in a half-whisper.

“Nobody knows. Not yet. The police—”

She got up.

“I want to see Jan,” she said wildly. “I must talk to her. I’d better try to go up to my room.”

William caught her by the arm.

“Not right away, Miss Marian,” he said in his quavering voice. “You see—”

She shook him off.

“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “I’m going up to my room. Get Jan and tell her I’m here, and don’t act the fool.”

That was the situation when Jan ran down the stairs, Marian standing angry and bewildered, and William evidently at a loss to know what to do. She gave them one look and kissed her mother’s cold face. But Marian did not return the caress.

“Why can’t I go upstairs in my own home, Jan? What is all this?”

It was on this tableau that Hilda appeared, Marian’s face flushed, Jan’s pale, and her young body stiff.

“I’m sorry, Mother. We’ll get her out as soon as we can. You see—”

“Get whom out?”

“Eileen. She’s sick. She is in your room, Mother.”

Marian’s frail body stiffened.

“So that’s it,” she said. “You’ve brought her here and put her in my room. The woman who ruined my life, and you couldn’t wait until I was gone to get her here!”

She would have gone on, but Hilda interfered. She took her into the library and gave her a stiff drink of Scotch. All the fire had gone out of her by that time. She seemed stunned. The liquor braced her, however, although she listened to Jan’s story with closed eyes. But her first words when Jan finished her brief outline were addressed to Hilda.

“So you let it happen after all!” she said. “I left her in your care, and she was killed.”

She was badly shaken, but she was frightened, too. Hilda was puzzled. She caught Marian watching Jan, as if the girl might know something she was not telling. She was more frightened than grieved, she thought. But she was coldly determined, too.

“Get that woman out of here,” she said. “At once, Jan. Do you hear? If she can’t walk, carry her. If she won’t be carried, throw her out. And if none of you can do it I’ll do it myself. Or strangle her,” she added.

That was the situation when Hilda got the inspector on the telephone. He seemed annoyed, as though he resented the interruption, but he agreed to let Eileen go.

“She’s hardly a suspect,” he said. “Sure. Better get young Brooke’s okay on it first.”

She called the doctor, who agreed willingly, and went to Eileen’s room. To her surprise Eileen was already out of bed and partly dressed. She was sitting in a chair while Ida drew on her stockings, and she was smiling coldly.

“I heard the fuss and rang,” she said. “Tell them not to worry. I’m leaving. She can have her room. She can have the whole damned house, so far as I am concerned.” She slid her feet into her pumps and stood up. “I suppose,” she said, “that my loving husband has come back, too.”