, standing
undecided before the half-open door, Gyp was conscious, as it were, of
too much stillness, of something unnatural about the silence. She was
just raising her hand to knock when she heard the sound of smothered
sobbing. Peeping through the window, she could just see a woman dressed
in green, evidently Mrs. Wagge, seated at a table, crying into her
handkerchief. At that very moment, too, a low moaning came from the room
above. Gyp recoiled; then, making up her mind, she went in and knocked
at the room where the woman in green was sitting. After fully half a
minute, it was opened, and Mrs. Wagge stood there. The nose and eyes and
cheeks of that thinnish, acid face were red, and in her green dress, and
with her greenish hair (for it was going grey and she put on it a yellow
lotion smelling of cantharides), she seemed to Gyp just like one of
those green apples that turn reddish so unnaturally in the sun. She had
rubbed over her face, which shone in streaks, and her handkerchief
was still crumpled in her hand. It was horrible to come, so fresh and
glowing, into the presence of this poor woman, evidently in bitter
sorrow. And a desperate desire came over Gyp to fly. It seemed dreadful
for anyone connected with him who had caused this trouble to be coming
here at all. But she said as softly as she could:

"Mrs. Wagge? Please forgive me--but is there any news? I am--It was I
who got Daphne down here."

The woman before her was evidently being torn this way and that, but at
last she answered, with a sniff:

"It--it--was born this morning--dead." Gyp gasped. To have gone through
it all for that! Every bit of mother-feeling in her rebelled and
sorrowed; but her reason said: Better so! Much better! And she murmured:

"How is she?"

Mrs. Wagge answered, with profound dejection:

"Bad--very bad. I don't know I'm sure what to say--my feelings are all
anyhow, and that's the truth. It's so dreadfully upsetting altogether."

"Is my nurse with her?"

"Yes; she's there. She's a very headstrong woman, but capable, I don't
deny. Daisy's very weak. Oh, it IS upsetting! And now I suppose there'll
have to be a burial. There really seems no end to it. And all because
of--of that man." And Mrs. Wagge turned away again to cry into her
handkerchief.

Feeling she could never say or do the right thing to the poor lady, Gyp
stole out. At the bottom of the stairs, she hesitated whether to go up
or no. At last, she mounted softly. I