"What in heaven's name do you mean by such manners?" demanded her
ladyship. "Apologise at once!"
"Where is Nigel? Nigel! Nigel!" the girl raved. "I will see him--I
will--I will see him!"
She who had been the mildest of sweet-tempered creatures all her life
had suddenly gone almost insane with heartbroken, hysteric grief and
rage. She did not know what she was saying and doing; she only realised
in an agony of despair that she was a thing caught in a trap; that these
people had her in their power, and that they had tricked and lied to her
and kept her apart from what her girl's heart so cried out to and longed
for. Her father, her mother, her little sister; they had been near her
and had been lied to and sent away.
"You are quite mad, you violent, uncontrolled creature!" cried the
Dowager furiously. "You ought to be put in a straitjacket and drenched
with cold water."
Then the door opened again and Nigel strode in. He was in riding dress
and was breathless and livid with anger. He was in a nice mood to
confront a wife on the verge of screaming hysterics. After a bad half
hour with his steward, who had been talking of impending disasters,
he had heard by chance of Wilson's conflagration and the hundred-pound
cheque.
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