While Aunt Effie prattled on, Sabrina’s eyes sought the housekeeper’s in a look of sheer despair. Without seeming to avoid that appealing glance, but equally without responding to it, Mrs. Pilton bent to shroud a chair with swift, competent movements. Her dark, secretive face was set in its habitual calm, she was as self-contained and remote as a deaf-mute. It might have been a stranger who had died, thought Sabrina, with a brief moment of wonder at the woman’s inhuman composure, instead of a man whose favorite cake she still baked for tea.

And George—her eyes went back heavily to Hilary’s brother, who obviously ate too much, and who hadn’t even the decency to wear a black band on his sleeve.

George was at the defenseless desk. Efficiently his thick hands went through the blotter and the drawers down the left side, tearing the written sheets of personal letters across and across as he came to them.

“No form of will, I suppose,” he was saying, “unless it’s at his banker’s. Not that the poor beggar had much to leave, I fancy. You don’t get much pay in his line, they only want your life, that’s all! Good job he never married. Here’s a file of some kind, I’d better take it back to Town with me, it seems to be mostly bills and that. I suppose some of them will have to be paid, nobody knows anything about his affairs—”

“You’ll get the shock of your life, old boy, when you find you’ve got nothing there but receipts,” said Hilary from the corner. “I’m paid up, thank you very much, and hoping you are the same!”

“Perhaps your little niece would like to have some form of keepsake,” George suggested, considering Sabrina twelve years old at most, and only meaning to be kind. “Before the room is closed, I mean.”

“Oh, shut up, George, for heaven’s sake!” Hilary implored him, but Aunt Effie caught at the idea eagerly.

“Well, I’m sure that’s very generous of you, Mr. Shenstone, if you think your mother wouldn’t mind—”

“No, no, rather not, the mater would be only too willing—. Perhaps one of these book-ends now—he thought a lot of those, I happen to know—brought them back from Egypt one time—I believe they’re supposed to be rather good. Or perhaps she’d like to have his fountain pen. That would be useful, wouldn’t it—”

“No, thank you,” gulped Sabrina, fighting off waves of sickness with clenched hands. “I wouldn’t like to take anything—away—”