CHAPTER XI
A SUNDAY OBSERVANCE
Honor Bright rode straight to the Bara Koti to tell Joyce of Elsie Meek's death, not without a grim satisfaction in the thought that the news was certain to fill her friend with self-reproach; on other accounts her feelings defied analysis.
Joyce was writing home-letters for the mail in her morning-room when Honor was announced, and she was arrested, in her expressions of welcome by the look on her visitor's face, which was unusually pale and her great brown eyes, always so friendly and tender, cold and grave.
"What is it?" she asked fearfully, as she searched her memory for any unconscious offence to her friend.
"I have just come from Mrs. Meek who is prostrated with grief. Elsie is dead. She died at sunrise this morning."
"Dead?—Elsie Meek?... I did not know she was so bad!" Joyce looked shocked and distressed.
"I left as Captain Dalton arrived—they are blaming him for not having gone there last night. He was expected, but"—she made a gesture of despair.
"Oh, Honor!—was it because he was here? He came to see if we were ill—I had been nervous about Baby—and when I knew that it was nothing, I kept him for music till—till quite late. Is it my fault?" The lovely face looked stricken and blanched.
"I don't know—perhaps indirectly; but he knew. He should not have stayed."