zie had been aware that some crisis had
found its hour. Rachel and her husband, Lady Adela and Lord John, even
the Duke and Lord Richard had been involved. It was not her business to
ask questions, but every morning that saw her sitting down to her day's
work saw her also wondering whether it would be her last in that
house....

Lady Adela, however sharply she may have changed in herself, had never
permitted her relationship to Lizzie to be drawn any closer. When Lizzie
had returned from that terrible Christmas at Seddon, Lady Adela had
asked her no questions, had shown no sign of human anxiety or
tenderness. She had never, during all the years that Lizzie had been
with her, expressed gratitude or satisfaction. She had, on the other
hand, never bullied nor lost her temper with her. She had separated
herself from all expression or human emotion. And yet Lizzie liked her.
She would miss her when their association ended: yes, she would miss
her, and the house and the whole Beaminster interest when the end came.

She wondered, as she stood at the window, whether that old woman
upstairs were suffering, what her struggle against extinction was
costing her, how urgently she was protesting against the passing of time
and the death of her generation. Flying galleons of silver clouds caught
the sun and Portland Place passed into shadow; the bell of the Round
Church began to ring. "Poor old thing," thought Lizzie; she would not
have considered her thus, a year ago.

Lady Adela came in; she reminded Lizzie of Mrs. Noah in her stiff wooden
hat, her stiff wooden clothes, her anxiety to prevent any mobility that
might give her away. She looked, as she always did, carefully about the
room, at the "Cornhills" and "Blackwoods," at the marble clock, at the
prints of Beaminster House and Eton College Chapel, a little as though
she would ascertain that no enemy, no robber, no brigand, no outlaw, was
concealed about the premises, a little as though she would say--"Well,
these things are all right anyway, nothing wrong here."

"I'm sorry, Miss Rand," she said. "I hope that I haven't kept you."

"No, thank you, Lady Adela, I have only just finished."

Lady Adela sat down; they discussed correspondence, trivial things that
were, Lizzie knew, placed as a barrier against something that frightened
her.

At length it came.

"Miss Rand, I wonder whether--the fact is, my mother has just decided
that she wishes to be moved to Beaminster House