She turned towards it with the roguish smile still upon her lips.
Merryon was looking at her at the moment.

She interested him far more than the visitor, whom he guessed to be one of the subalterns.

And so looking, he saw the smile freeze upon her face to a mask-like immobility.

And very suddenly he remembered a man whom he had once seen killed on a battlefield--killed instantaneously--while laughing at some joke.

The frozen mirth, the starting eyes, the awful vacancy where the soul had been--he saw them all again in the face of his wife.
"Great heavens, Puck! What is it ?" he said, and sprang to his feet.
In the same instant she turned with the movement of one tearing herself free from an evil spell, and flung herself violently upon his breast.
"Oh, Billikins, save me--save me!" she cried, and broke into hysterical sobbing.
His arms were about her in a second, sheltering her, sustaining her.