Nurse O’Brien said with dignity:
“I’m not one to gossip! And I wouldn’t be blackening anyone’s name that’s dead.”
Nurse Hopkins nodded her head slowly and said:
“That’s right. I agree with you. Least said soonest mended.”
She filled up the teapot.
Nurse O’Brien said:
“By the way, now, did you find that tube of morphine all right when you got home?”
Nurse Hopkins frowned. She said:
“No. It beats me to know what can have become of it, but I think it may have been this way: I might have set it down on the edge of the mantelpiece as I often do while I lock the cupboard, and it might have rolled and fallen into the wastepaper basket that was all full of rubbish and that was emptied out into the dustbin just as I left the house.” She paused. “It must be that way, for I don’t see what else could have become of it.”
“I s
ee,” said Nurse O’Brien. “Well, dear, that must have been it. It’s not as though you’d left your case about anywhere else—only just in the hall at Hunterbury—so it seems to me that what you suggested just now must be so. It’s gone into the rubbish bin.”
“That’s right,” said Nurse Hopkins eagerly. “It couldn’t be any other way, could it?”
She helped herself to a pink sugar cake. She said, “It’s not as though…” and stopped.
The other agreed quickly—perhaps a little too quickly.
“I’d not be worrying about it any more if I was you,” she said comfortably.
Nurse Hopkins said:
“I’m not worrying….”
II
Young and severe in her black dress, Elinor sat in front of Mrs. Welman’s massive writing table in the library. Various papers were spread out in front of her. She had finished interviewing the servants and Mrs. Bishop. Now it was Mary Gerrard who entered the room and hesitated a minute by the doorway.
“You wanted to see me, Miss Elinor?” she said.
Elinor looked up.
“Oh, yes, Mary. Come here and sit down, will you?”
Mary came and sat in the chair Elinor indicated. It was turned a little towards the window, and the light from it fell on her face, showing the dazzling purity of the skin and bringing out the pale gold of the girl’s hair.
Elinor held one hand shielding her face a little. Between the fingers she could watch the other girl’s face.
She thought:
“Is it possible to hate anyone so much and not show it?”
Aloud she said in a pleasant, businesslike voice:
“I think you know, Mary, that my aunt always took a great interest in you and would have been concerned about your future.”
Mary murmured in her soft voice:
“Mrs. Welman was very good to me always.”