Still no reply.
'Perhaps her ladyship is going to take tea in her own room,' she said, afraid to be officious.
Attendance upon her grandmother at afternoon tea had been one of Lesbia's particular duties; but Mary felt that she was an unwelcome substitute for Lesbia.

She wanted to get a little nearer her grandmother's heart if she could; but she knew that her attentions were endured rather than liked.
She went into the hall, where the footman on duty was staring at the light snowflakes dancing past the window, perhaps wishing he were a snowflake himself, and enjoying himself in that white whirligig.
'Is her ladyship having tea in the morning-room ?' asked Mary.
The footman gave a little start, as if awakened out of a kind of trance.
The sheer vacuity of his mind might naturally slide into mesmeric sleep.
He told Lady Mary that her ladyship had not left the library, and Mary went in timidly, wondering why her grandmother had not joined them in the drawing-room when the stranger was gone.
The sky was dark outside the wide windows, white hills and valleys shrouded in the shades of night.

The library was only lighted by the glow of the logs on the hearth, and in that ruddy light the spacious room looked empty.

Mary was turning to go away, thinking the footman had been mistaken, when her eye suddenly lighted upon a dark figure lying on the ground.

And then she heard an awful stertorous breathing, and knew that her grandmother was lying there, stricken and helpless.
Mary shrieked aloud, with a cry that pierced curtains and doors, and brought Fraeulein and half-a-dozen servants to her help.