ubject
and the emotion suitable to the occasion. She had even attained a
certain modified dampness of handkerchief. Rosalie's handkerchief,
however, was not damp. She had not even attempted to use it, but sat
still, her eyes brimming with tears, which, when she saw Betty, brimmed
over and slipped helplessly down her cheeks.

"Betty!" she exclaimed, and got up and went towards her, "I believe you
have heard."

"In the village, I heard something--yes," Betty answered, and after
giving greeting to Mrs. Brent, she led her sister back to her chair, and
sat near her.

This--the thought leaped upon her--was the kind of situation she must be
prepared to be equal to. In the presence of these who knew nothing,
she must bear herself as if there was nothing to be known. No one but
herself had the slightest knowledge of what the past months had brought
to her--no one in the world. If the bell tolled, no one in the world but
her father ever would know. She had no excuse for emotion. None had been
given to her. The kind of thing it was proper that she should say and do
now, in the presence of Mrs. Brent, it would be proper and decent that
she should say and do in all other cases. She must comport herself as
Betty Vanderpoel would if she were moved only by ordinary human sympathy
and regret.

"We must remember that we have only excited rumour to depend upon," she
said. "Lord Mount Dunstan has kept his village under almost military
law. He has put it into quarantine. No one is allowed to leave it, so
there can be no direct source of information. One cannot be sure of the
entire truth of what one hears. Often it is exaggerated cottage talk.
The whole neighbourhood is wrought up to a fever heat of excited
sympathy. And villagers like the drama of things."

Mrs. Brent looked at her admiringly, it being her fixed habit to admire
Miss Vanderpoel, and all such as Providence had set above her.

"Oh, how wise you are, Miss Vanderpoel!" she exclaimed, even devoutly.
"It is so nice of you to be calm and logical when everybody else is so
upset. You are quite right about villagers enjoying the dramatic side of
troubles. They always do. And perhaps things are not so bad as they say.
I ought not to have let myself believe the worst. But I quite broke down
under the ringers--I was so touched."

"The ringers?" faltered Lady Anstruthers

"The leader came to the vicar to tell him they wanted permission to
toll--if they heard tolling at Dunstan.