.
She met Dr.Lancaster as she came out from the candle-lit room and clutched him convulsively by the hand.
"Is that--being dead ?" she whispered, pointing to the room she had just quitted.
Very gently he tried to explain things to her.

Afterwards Magda overheard the family lawyer asking him in appropriately shocked tones of what complaint Lady Vallincourt had died, and there had been a curious grim twist to Lancaster's mouth as he made answer.
"Heart," he said tersely.
"Ah! Very sad.

Very sad indeed," rejoined the lawyer feelingly.

"These heart complaints are very obscure sometimes, I believe ?" "Sometimes," said Lancaster.

"Not always." The next happening that impressed itself on Magda's cognisance as an event was the coming of Lady Arabella Winter.