The Case for the Crown by Fred M. White — Read

Cecil Molyneux awoke to the knowledge of a perfect day. The sun was shining brilliantly as she came down to breakfast, the rays of light pierced through the sides of the blinds, the birds were singing in the garden, and on the lawns the gardeners were busy with their mowing machines as if nothing had happened. The whole thing struck Cecil as a kind of outrage, as something that ought not to be. It seemed to her that the whole world ought to stand still in sympathy with her misfortunes.

And yet with all the dread and misery of it there was a certain sense of rest and peacefulness, a sedative for the nerves to the like of which she had been a stranger ever since that evil day when she first came to the Red House as its mistress. But there was no getting away from the awful feeling of dread and the knowledge of the trials that lay before her. She was conscious of it in her own heart and in the half-averted glances of her servants as they waited on her and moved silently about their household duties. She knew perfectly well what was going on in their minds, and how they were wondering why she was still at liberty. And so the long, long day dragged on until it became a terror and a torture, the more intensified by the knowledge that there were many days like it to follow.