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dispensary."
How many people do you poison?" I asked, smiling.
Cynthia smiled too.
"
"Oh, hundreds!" she said.
"
Cynthia," called Mrs. Inglethorp, "do you think you could write a few notes
for me?"
"Certainly, Aunt Emily."
She jumped up promptly, and something in her manner reminded me that
her position was a dependent one, and that Mrs. Inglethorp, kind as she
might be in the main, did not allow her to forget it.
My hostess turned to me.
"John will show you your room. Supper is at half-past seven. We have given
up late dinner for some time now. Lady Tadminster, our Member's wife--she
was the late Lord Abbotsbury's daughter--does the same. She agrees with
me that one must set an example of economy. We are quite a war
household; nothing is wasted here--every scrap of waste paper, even, is
saved and sent away in sacks."
I expressed my appreciation, and John took me into the house and up the
broad staircase, which forked right and left half-way to different wings of the
building. My room was in the left wing, and looked out over the park.
John left me, and a few minutes later I saw him from my window walking
slowly across the grass arm in arm with Cynthia Murdoch. I heard Mrs.
Inglethorp call "Cynthia" impatiently, and the girl started and ran back to
the house. At the same moment, a man stepped out from the shadow of a
tree and walked slowly in the same direction. He looked about forty, very
dark with a melancholy clean-shaven face. Some violent emotion seemed to
be mastering him. He looked up at my window as he passed, and I
recognized him, though he had changed much in the fifteen years that had
elapsed since we last met. It was John's younger brother, Lawrence
Cavendish. I wondered what it was that had brought that singular
expression to his face.
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