When the girl was thoroughly convalescent it became a question what should be done with her. Clara had extracted a promise from her never to go back to her old life on the canal. About this time it was that the Baron von Rosenberg set up his establishment at Beaulieu. An assistant was required in the laundry; Margery thought she should like the situation, so it was obtained for her.
"Why, Margery, what can be the matter? Why do you want to see me so particularly?" asked Mrs. Brooke.
"It's about him--about Muster Geril," she managed to gasp out. "O mum! the polis is coming, and I've run'd all the way from Bulloo to tell you."
"The polis, mum," answered the girl with one of her uncanny laughs. Miss Primby, who had never heard anything like it before, gave a little jump and stared at Margery as if she were some strange animal escaped from a menagerie.
"The police, I suppose you mean?" Margery nodded, and began to bite a corner of her apron.
"You must be mistaken, child. What can the police be coming here for?"
"To arrest my husband?" Margery nodded again. "What can they want to arrest him for?"
"For murder!" ejaculated both the ladies. There was a moment's breathless pause. Gerald, with one hand on the back of a chair, and one knee resting on the seat, had the impassive air of a man whom nothing more can surprise. He had gone through so much of late that for a time it seemed as if no fresh emotion had power to touch him.
"Great heaven! Margery, what are you talking about?" said Mrs. Brooke with blanched lips.
"They say as how Muster Geril shot the gentleman--the Baron--what was found dead about a hour ago. Not as I believes a word of it," she added with a touch of contempt in her voice. "A pistol set with gold and with funny figures scratched on it, was found not far from the corpus, and they say it belongs to Muster Geril."
"My Indian pistol which I lent to Von Rosenberg ten weeks ago," said Gerald quietly.
"And now the polis have gone for a warrin to take him up," added the girl.
Again Margery nodded. She was a girl who, as a rule, was sparing of her words.
"I, the murderer of Von Rosenberg!" said Gerald, with a bitter laugh. "Such an accusation would be ridiculous if it were not horrible."