Whenshe reached home, Rhoda was met in the hall by Sir Robert. His usually placid countenance was disturbed, and a horrible suspicion flashed through her mind, as he came straight towards her, that he was going to ask her some awkward questions about Lady Sarah or Mr. Rotherfield.
Advancing towards her so eagerly that it was clear he had been waiting for her, he said:
“Oh, Miss Pembury, I’m so glad you’ve come back. I’ve been waiting for you this half hour.” Then, perceiving that she grew white, and was evidently alarmed, he added with a rather forced smile: “Don’t look so frightened. It’s nothing serious, at least nothing very serious. This way, please.”
Trembling and cold, Rhoda followed him into the study, where he shut the door and made her sit down before he would come to the point.
“Now I don’t want you to worry yourself, but can you tell me whether we moved the snuff-boxes from their place in the third specimen table from the end of the gallery?”
Deadly pale, Rhoda drew a long breath.
“No,” she replied hoarsely. “They were there this morning; I’m sure of it.”
Sir Robert frowned in distress.
“I thought so,” he said. “Well, come with me now, and you will see that the three best are missing.”
“Oh!” broke from her lips in such a tone of distress that he put his hand kindly on her shoulder.
“Don’t worry yourself about it,” said he. “They’ll turn up all right, I’ve no doubt. But, if you don’t mind, we’ll just go into the gallery together and make sure of the fact of their disappearance.”
Scarcely able to walk, so overpowered was she by a nameless dread, Rhoda accompanied him along the passage which led to the gallery. Since Rhoda had undertaken so much work for him in connection with his treasures, the baronet had had a set of duplicate keys made, so that, while he kept the one in his own possession, Rhoda had charge of the other. She had been rather reluctant to receive this mark of confidence, not feeling quite sure that Lady Sarah might not resent it. But Sir Robert had insisted, and she had found it a convenience to go into the gallery when she had a spare moment, to go on with the work she had undertaken.
Now, however, she began to wish with all her heart that she had not undertaken this responsibility, perceiving that she might have involved herself in a serious difficulty.
Quickly and in silence she followed Sir Robert, who opened the door of the gallery with his own key, turned on the electric light, and led the way to the end, where, in a glass-covered specimen table, it was his habit to keep about a dozen old snuff-boxes of exquisite workmanship, the aggregate value of which was some thousands of pounds.
He stopped short in front of the table, and Rhoda looked down at it. One, two, three of the treasures were missing, and the choice had been a most judicious one, for the three boxes which had disappeared were all of gold, all painted by celebrated artists, and all mounted with jewels.
“You see the three have gone,” said he, while Rhoda stood beside him, unable to utter a word. “And the rest have been so carefully arranged that they look, at first sight, as if none were missing.”
“They’ve been stolen,” said Rhoda hoarsely.
“That’s what I think. Now the question is when, how, and by whom? In the first place whose keys have been got hold of—yours or mine? Mine have never been out of my pocket or my hand all day. What about yours?”
Rhoda uttered a low cry.
“I left them in my room, in the pocket of the dress I wore this morning, when I changed it for this one to go to the flower show,” she answered, brokenly.
“Some one has perhaps got at them. Would you mind going up to see whether they are still in the pocket of your dress?”
His tone was just as kind and gentle as ever; but to Rhoda, who was suffering an agony of mortification at what she thought he must consider her carelessness, fled along the gallery without a word. But his kind voice checked her before she reached the door. He was calling to her quite gently:
“Miss Pembury! My dear Miss Pembury, don’t take this so much to heart. I’ve no doubt the keys will turn up. But even if they should not, pray, pray understand that you are in no way to blame.”
“Oh yes, I am, oh yes, I am. I ought to have taken them with me!”
“Not at all. I often leave my own keys in the pocket of my coat, and there was not the least reason for you to think yours were any less safe. And remember, we don’t yet know whether it was your keys that were used. A lock may be picked, you know.”
But, though Rhoda thanked him and tried to hope, she was weighed down by the dreadful certainty that it was indeed her keys which had been used by the thief. And there flashed through her mind as she ran up the stairs a horrible vague dread that this theft might have been committed with the object of discrediting her with Sir Robert.
She flew along the corridor, locked herself in her room, and opening the door of her wardrobe, pulled out the dress with trembling hands, and felt in the pockets.
The keys were not there.
With a low cry, she put the dress back, and looked about the room in the vain hope that she might have dropped the keys somewhere while she was putting her dress away.
But it was hoping against hope, and at last she had to give up her search, and stealing out of her room, feeling as guilty as if she herself had been the thief, she went slowly back along the corridor and down the stairs, to the study.
“Come in,” cried Sir Robert in his kind voice.
She could scarcely turn the handle of the door, and when she was inside the room, she could do nothing but utter whispered exclamations of distress.
The baronet laughed at her in the most reassuring manner, and pushed her gently into a chair.
“Don’t behave like that, you silly, silly girl!” said he in a robust and reassuring voice. “I see what it is: you haven’t found the keys. They’re gone. Is that it?”
She bowed her head in assent.
“I’m quite, quite sure I put them in my pocket this morning, and that I didn’t take them out again after I’d done my work in the gallery. Some one must have taken them out. Some one who knew where I kept them.”
She sat up and stared at him almost fiercely.
The words distressed him, she saw.
“Do you think that perhaps they fell as you were either putting them in or taking them out again? Do you think it possible that you may have let them drop, and that they may have been picked up by one of the servants? I should hate to have to suspect any member of my household, but there are some who have not been here long, and one knows that some one must have taken the snuff-boxes.”
“I should have heard them fall,” said Rhoda uncertainly.
“Do you think there was a hole in your pocket?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Or that they may have slipped out on to the floor of your room?”
“I’ve hunted everywhere,” said Rhoda.
“Of course it is plain that the things have been stolen, and probably by means of your keys,” said he. “But I would rather think that the keys had been picked up and that the finder yielded to a sudden temptation than that a deliberate plot was hatched to rob me by hunting in your pockets while you were away. That would be abominable, odious, unpardonable.”
Sir Robert grew quite warm as he thought of such an act of treachery.
“I wonder if I did drop them,” said Rhoda doubtfully. “But I really don’t think it possible. I’m not so careless as all that,” she went on piteously. “When I look upon it as such a high honour to have the keys at all.”
She threw at Sir Robert a look so plaintive, so full of apology and despair that he could not help smiling, as he told her not to worry her head about it, but to be sure that everything would come right.
“If it is one of the young servants who has been tempted,” said he, “I will try to get at him or her through the housekeeper, or by some other means, and to persuade him or her into restitution. So dry your eyes and go and dress for dinner, and try to forget all about this littlecontretemps.”
With dumb gratitude in her eyes poor Rhoda stole upstairs again and shut herself once more in her room. She was heartbroken over the unhappy affair, and could not help considering herself to have failed in her duty as custodian.
As for the identity of the thief, she could not even make a reasonable guess. The household was a large one, there were members of it she had never even seen. As perhaps none of them knew that she had duplicate keys, except one or two of the upper servants who were wholly to be trusted, Rhoda began to ask herself whether Sir Robert’s suggestion might not be a good one, that she had dropped the keys on to the soft carpet of the corridor as she came out of the study, instead of slipping them into her pocket.
In the meantime she would make sure that her pocket was really sound, as she supposed.
So she opened her wardrobe once more, and thrust her hand again into the pocket in which she usually carried the keys.
And the keys were there, not one missing. Rhoda pulled them out with a hand that was wet and trembling, and sat down on the nearest chair, sick at heart and cold with a strange, new fear.
Therecould no longer be any question that the theft of the snuff-boxes was deliberate, and moreover that it had been most carefully planned and cleverly carried out.
Who then was the thief?
Half ashamed of herself for her suspicions, Rhoda yet could not but feel that they all pointed in the same direction. And she shuddered at the thought that this plot had been made against herself, and that it was not robbery but slander which was the object of the thief.
Not one of the younger servants could possibly know anything about the duplicate keys; while the older ones were all incapable, whatever their knowledge might be, of using it against her or against their master.
Only one person besides Sir Robert himself was aware that she had a set of keys for the gallery, a large one to open the door, and smaller ones to open the cases and chests.
Only one person, she argued, would have had either the artfulness to conceive the robbery, or the nerve to carry it out.
Daring as her suspicion could not fail to seem, even to herself, Rhoda at once decided that the theft was the work of Lady Sarah, of whose secret animosity she was well assured.
And that its object was to discredit Rhoda by bringing upon her the suspicion of theft seemed to her, at first, equally certain.
What other explanation, indeed, could there be for such an act on the part of the over-indulged wife of a rich man? Rhoda did not know all that had passed, since Lady Sarah’s return, between the baronet and his wife, and it did not occur to her that Lady Sarah could possibly be pressed for money. As for the ruinous extravagance of the beauty, of which Lady Eridge had spoken, however much she might wish to spend she appeared to have enough to gratify every wish and every whim.
Rhoda did not doubt that the next stage in the affair would be a gradual coolness on Sir Robert’s part towards herself, and that soon she would learn, more or less explicitly, that her honesty was under suspicion.
In the meantime she dared not breathe a word of her own doubts to any one, but could only wait to be attacked.
What should she do in the meantime? To ask permission to go away would be to bring fresh odium upon herself, while to remain would expose her to the possibility of more suspicion.
Not unnaturally, poor Rhoda found, when the gong sounded for dinner, that her eyes were red, her face was swollen, and she was emphatically what women call “not fit to be seen.” However, there was no help for it. Downstairs she had to go, to endure as best she might the covert looks of Lady Sarah, and, of course, of Mr. Rotherfield, who, she did not doubt, would be in the secret of her discomfiture.
Nothing was said about her altered looks; Sir Robert gave her a kind and reassuring smile, from which she augured, with a ray of comfort, that he had not yet been induced to doubt her. But Lady Sarah and Jack Rotherfield did not appear to notice the change in her appearance, and, although the master of the house was not so lively as he usually was in the society of his late ward, his wife and Jack kept the conversation alive during dinner.
Rhoda would have escaped upstairs at once on leaving the dining-room, but Lady Sarah detained her, saying that they wanted her to play and sing for them again.
“Won’t you excuse me to-night, Lady Sarah? Really, I’m not at all well,” said Rhoda.
Lady Sarah pulled her down the stairs peremtorily.
“Nonsense,” whispered she. “I know all about it. I know what’s the matter. Only of course I couldn’t allude to it before the servants. Come into the drawing-room and let us talk it over.”
Trembling and reluctant, but unable to resist the wilful beauty, even though she hated her for her dissimilation and her treachery, Rhoda had to consent to atête-à-têtewhich she would have given the world to avoid.
In to the brightly lighted apartment, therefore, which could scarcely be recognised as the old drawing-room where the unhappy Langton had met his death, Rhoda was dragged. Lady Sarah threw her down into the deep-seated settee near the fireplace, and pulling across the floor a high round stool, she seated herself upon it, embraced her knees like a child, and nodded gravely at the girl two or three times.
“Yes, I know all about it,” she said. “Sir Robert told me. Some wretch has stolen three or four of Sir Robert’s patch-boxes, and you and he thinks that your keys or his must have been got at. It’s very unpleasant and uncomfortable, and I’m sorry for your sake. But not so much for any other. It will be a lesson to Sir Robert not to waste so much money as he does on things that he could enjoy just as well in a museum, and which can never be made quite safe in a private house.”
Rhoda stared at her stupidly.
If Lady Sarah’s expressed opinion was not genuine, it was an excellent piece of acting. She was frank, sympathetic, kindly, and not in the least inclined to exaggerate the importance of the loss, or to impute blame to Rhoda.
“It’s—it’s a dreadful thing for me,” stammered Rhoda, without quite knowing whether she was or was not ashamed of her own suspicions.
“Why? You surely don’t suppose we think it was your fault? As Sir Robert himself says, it is just as likely that his keys were used as that yours were.”
Rhoda shook her head.
“They were taken out of my pocket—and put back again,” she said shortly. “They were missing when I first came back from the Priory, and they were restored during the time I was talking to Sir Robert about it.”
“Then they were taken by some one who must have watched you go in and out of your room?”
“Yes.”
“Does Sir Robert know that?”
“Not yet. I only found the keys replaced ten minutes before I came down to dinner.”
“He will be in here within a few minutes now, and we will consult together about laying a trap for the thief.”
Rhoda said nothing. She was confused, her head seemed to be spinning. There was no hint of any accusation in Lady Sarah’s manner, nothing but sympathetic regret for the girl’s own sake in her voice and manner.
But yet Rhoda did not trust her, did not even now really doubt that her first impression was the correct one. She looked at the fire, and turning suddenly, caught an expression in Lady Sarah’s eyes which was not at all benevolent.
And she was completely reinstated in her first opinion. It was Lady Sarah, and no other, who, for what motive she did not yet know, had lain in wait for an opportunity of obtaining the keys, had obtained the possession of the three snuff-boxes, and who had then found means of replacing the keys in the pocket while she knew Rhoda to be downstairs.
“Well, it won’t happen again,” said Rhoda drily. “I am going to give back my keys to Sir Robert this evening, and I will never take charge of them again.”
“He won’t let you give them up.”
“He will have no choice,” said Rhoda, with decision.
“How obstinate you are,” complained Lady Sarah petulantly.
“I don’t think any one would act differently in my position,” said Rhoda.
“Then he is to lose your help, after having learnt to depend upon it?”
Rhoda, with a flush in her cheeks, and speaking in a trembling voice, rushed nervously at the opportunity thus presented:
“Well, why don’t you give him the help he wants yourself? It’s easy enough, and think how grateful he would be to you! When he prizes every word and look from you, it would make him so happy if you only would interest yourself in his collection. Do this, take care of his keys yourself, and whatever you don’t care to do, in the way of cataloguing and deciphering notes, and all that, give to me yourself, and let me do it for you instead of for him.”
Rhoda spoke earnestly, almost passionately; and Lady Sarah, who had begun by laughing a little at her proposition, listened to the end of her speech with an unusually grave face.
There was a short pause when Rhoda had finished; then the volatile lady recovered her spirits.
“I wish I could,” she said, with a pretty little shrug. “Believe me, I only wish I had been ‘built that way,’ and that I could play Joan to Sir Robert’s Darby in the proper manner. But I really couldn’t, you know. I might play at it for a week, but I couldn’t keep it up. We don’t like the same things, and it would be foolish of me to pretend to, because he’d find me out. Just think what a hash I should make of it if I were to attempt to criticise his Romney and his two Gainsboroughs, his Fra Angelico and his old engravings! To me they seem all dull and old-fashioned and over-rated altogether. I pretend sometimes to see their beauties, but it’s only pretence, and it bores me to pretend. Don’t you see?”
Rhoda was interested. If Lady Sarah had been acting before, she was obviously sincere now, and the girl felt for a moment rather sorry for the young married woman.
“Well, can’t you teach him to be interested in the things that interest you?” she hazarded.
She was surprised at her own boldness; but there was something more human, less artificial than usual in Lady Sarah’s manner that evening, which encouraged her to speak out. It was better to get right to the bottom of this human soul, if she could, now that she seemed to have the opportunity.
Lady Sarah shook her pretty head.
“Oh, dear no. When you lecture me——”
“Oh, no, I didn’t!” interpolated Rhoda, shocked.
“Yes, you did. I repeat, when you lecture me, you do it without understanding the position. Every one is sorry for Sir Robert, the grave, kind-hearted man married to a flighty little woman who doesn’t care about old masters or cracked teapots. But nobody takes the trouble to remember that there’s another side to the question, and that the flighty little woman is to be pitied too!”
“Yes, I see,” admitted Rhoda.
“It may be much more dignified, and a sign of a higher nature, and all that to prefer looking at pictures to dancing and motoring. But if one can’t help oneself, what is one to do? And it would, of course, be just as impossible to make Sir Robert take to waltzing and to interest him in polo and fox-hunting, as it would to make a bookworm and a blue-stocking of a poor ignoramus like me.”
Rhoda could not help smiling sympathetically. This was the truth for once. Lady Sarah was, for the moment at least, genuinely sorry for herself, and she made Rhoda sorry too.
“But you know what he was like in the first place,” objected she timidly.
“Well, and he knew what I was like. And I can’t suppose that he ever expected me to fall down and worship his Bartolozzis, or to go crazy over his old blue china. As for me, to do me justice, I never pretended that I could. So of what use would it be for me to try to do what isn’t natural to me? Isn’t it better that he should follow his bent, and I mine, when neither of us does anything wrong or mischievous, after all?”
“It seems a pity,” ventured Rhoda. “Forgive me for saying so, but you wouldn’t have to pretend much to be interested in what interests him.”
“Yes, I should. Luckily, we have some pleasures in common. We like the same people. We have both taken a fancy to you, and we are both fond of his late ward, Jack. And we both adore Caryl. Why shouldn’t we be content with the sympathies that we have, and not try to manufacture others?”
It was all very cleverly put, Rhoda thought, but she was not convinced. Perhaps Lady Sarah, frank as she seemed, did not expect her to be. At any rate, she suddenly sprang up from her stool, as if tired of the discussion, and flitting across to the piano, seated herself at it, and played a two-step with vigour that caused it to reach the ears of the gentlemen, whom it effectually brought out of the dining-room.
The talk at once turned again to the subject of the stolen snuff-boxes. Rhoda told Sir Robert of her discovery of the keys, was sure that they had been replaced in the pocket of her dress during her short absence to speak to him in the study, and insisted on returning them to him, declining to have the custody of them for the future.
It was in vain that the baronet protested, that Lady Sarah coaxed, that Jack said she should keep them and lay traps to catch the thief on a later occasion. Nothing would move her from her purpose, and Sir Robert had, with great reluctance, to accept the keys from her.
They all had theories to suggest, Jack being loud in support of the suggestion that the theft was the work of one of the men-servants, and Sir Robert being of opinion that it was the work of a woman. For, he said, no suspicion would be excited by the sight of one of the maids coming out of or going into a bedroom, while if a man-servant were to be caught in the neighbourhood of the rooms where he had no business, suspicion would be directed to him at once.
The conversation was animated, every one taking a fair share with the exception of Rhoda, whose attitude was rather that of a listener than of a talker.
And she was rewarded for her watchfulness by catching a look exchanged between Lady Sarah and Jack Rotherfield, a look after which her old suspicions returned in full force.
For in it she saw that there was a perfect understanding between these two over the theft, and that each seemed to be congratulating the other upon a lucky escape.
Inspite of the strength of her suspicions, it was strange that Rhoda’s interest in Lady Sarah grew stronger from that evening when she became fairly certain in her own mind that the lady had appropriated the snuff-boxes from her husband’s collection.
Torn by doubts as to what the meaning of the theft could be, since Lady Sarah seemed to be plentifully supplied with money, on the one hand, and since she seemed to have no intention of getting Rhoda into disgrace, upon the other, Rhoda scarcely wavered in her belief.
She could not, certainly, have offered any very sound reasons for it; but with the illogical springing to an opinion which so often serves with a woman as well as strong reasoning powers, she caught and held fast to the idea that Lady Sarah had stolen the snuff-boxes, and moreover, that Jack Rotherfield knew all about it.
In spite of this belief, however, Rhoda felt that she had more sympathy with Sir Robert’s erratic wife after that night than she had had before. The few moments’ talk they had had together had opened her eyes to the fact that, if Sir Robert was disappointed in the woman who had inspired such a passion within him, she, on her side, was by nature unfitted to find much happiness or even contentment in his society.
Her husband bored her.
There was something in the mellow tones of his voice that irritated and depressed her, something in his sedate manner that seemed to her ridiculous when it was not deadening.
For while he had married her under the influence of passion, she, on her side, had been under the influence of no such idealising feeling.
On the one hand, he was the more to be pitied, in that he had married her under the spell of an illusion. On the other, she had been practically forced by circumstances to give her hand to a man who, whatever her respect for him might be, could not, in the nature of things, be expected to realise her girlish ideal.
Rhoda was very unhappy. No further allusion was made by Sir Robert to his loss, and she helped him as before. But they could not help feeling conscious of that unfortunate incident, and worrying their heads about it, while Lady Sarah was always making new suggestions as to traps and plots for the discovery of the dishonest person, to none of which the good-natured baronet would agree.
On the third day after the loss they all got something fresh to occupy themselves with, in the return home of Minnie Mallory and her brother George, who had got an extension of his vacation on the plea of ill-health: he having had a slight attack of what he said was influenza, of which he had made the most.
They were much amused to hear who Rhoda was, having retained a dim remembrance of the tall pale girl with the lank hair who had told George that listening at keyholes was ungentlemanly.
They came up to her tumultuously, a couple of overgrown, sandy-haired, light-eyed, sharp-featured young people, with mischief in every line of their faces, and dry humour in every turn of their heads.
Rhoda was upstairs in Caryl’s sitting-room when they presented themselves to her, grinning with pleasure.
“You don’t remember me,” said Rhoda.
“No,” said George frankly. “I was only eight, and I don’t think I should have recognised you with your hair up.”
“Do you think we’ve altered very much?” demanded Minnie.
“Why, of course you have. You were only quite a little girl?”
“Do you think we’ve improved?” asked George.
“I hope so, I’m sure,” said Rhoda frankly.
“That’s not what I call civil,” objected George.
“Oh, yes, it is. Because of course I shouldn’t say it if I didn’t feel sure you had improved very much,” explained Rhoda.
“Why, what was wrong with us?” he asked brusquely.
“You used to listen at doors.”
“Oh, so we should do now, if we got the chance,” said Minnie calmly.
“I do like,” said George, “to know what’s going on all round me. Is Jack here still?”
Rhoda grew red.
“He has been here. He went away two days ago.”
“Ah!” said George. “That’s why Aunt Sarah is in such a bad temper.”
“Hush,” said Rhoda shocked.
“Why should I hush? Everybody knows that’s true, except of course Uncle Robert. Aunt is always ill-tempered when she’s left alone with him.”
Rhoda kept frowning and looking at Caryl, in the endeavour to stop the rash young man. At last she got up, and beckoned to George to follow her to the window, while Minnie remained with the boy.
“You really mustn’t talk like that about Lady Sarah, and especially before Caryl,” she said.
“Oh, well, there’s no harm in what I said. As for Aunt’s ill-temper, the poor little beggar must have noticed it himself. And as for my speaking about her flirtation with Jack Rotherfield, everybody knows all about that. It’s gone on for ever so long. That’s why nobody notices it, except, of course, Minnie and me.”
“I don’t think you ought to talk like that. Sir Robert would be very angry if he were to hear you.”
“No, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t believe it, you know.”
“I’m quite sure it would annoy him very much if he were to hear the way you talk.”
“But he won’t hear it. Bless your heart, do you think I don’t know that it’s only a safety-valve for Aunt?” said George with the air of an astute critic. “If it were not for Jack Rotherfield’s visits, she’d sling her hook altogether.”
“Oh, hush!”
“She would, I tell you. Even my grandmother knows it. That’s why I call him a safety-valve.”
Rhoda could scarcely believe her ears when she heard this young lad of twenty presuming thus to criticise his elders. The fact that there was at least a grain of truth in what he said made him, however, difficult to contradict, as he was impossible to silence.
“I should think,” she said severely, “that your society and that of your sister was lively enough to keep Lady Sarah amused.”
“Oh, no, she can’t flirt with me, and it’s flirtation she wants. It’s like oil to the engine with her. I suppose it is with everybody.”
“Not to Sir Robert,” said Rhoda with dignity.
“Oh, yes, to him too. Doesn’t he flirt with you?”
Rhoda was aghast at this impertinence.
George hastened to explain.
“In the nicest possible way, of course. But I should have thought he would have been delighted to get you to help him with his collection and things like that. You’re so quiet and gentle, you would be just the sedative he requires after a dose of Aunt Sarah.”
Rhoda was beyond measure shocked at this audacious speech, uttered as it was as if it had been the most natural and innocent in the world.
“I certainly never ‘flirt,’ as you call it, with Sir Robert, or with anybody,” she said with dignity.
“Well, don’t be angry. I didn’t mean to say anything to annoy you. As I say, it’s only natural to flirt with somebody, and I suppose my uncle makes confidantes of his Gainsborough ladies. Even a picture would be more sympathetic than my aunt when Jack’s away.”
Rhoda was greatly scandalised by this short conversation with The Terrors, whom she found still worthy of their name, as Mrs. Hawkes had predicted. She was, besides, rendered uneasy by the lad’s perspicacity with regard not only to his aunt, but his uncle. The expression he had used, ‘to flirt,’ was odious and horrid. But there could be no doubt that in the main his contention, better expressed, would have been sound. Not only were the ill-mated pair happier apart than together, but each certainly found happiness in the society of others. Sir Robert looked the picture of content when he was hunting among his notes with Rhoda on one side of him and Caryl on the other; while Lady Sarah’s low spirits disappeared as if by magic when Jack Rotherfield came into the room.
She wondered how this over-frank young man got on with his uncle and aunt, and had the satisfaction of seeing, at dinner-time, that The Terrors had tact enough to affect a guileless air of innocence in the presence of their guardians.
Only when it was perfectly safe to do so did George, after some allusion to Jack Rotherfield, glance over at his sister and bestow upon her a slight wink, which she promptly responded to in the same graceful fashion.
It was a childlike question put by Minnie to her aunt which elicited the reply that Jack Rotherfield would be again at Dourville in a week.
“I’m so sorry. I shall miss him,” said George sweetly.
“Perhaps he won’t miss you, dear,” said his sister solemnly.
Luckily only Rhoda guessed at the veiled sarcasm in the ingenuous speech.
It was terrible to have to hear these two precocious young people sitting in judgment on their elders; they made her feel shy of entering the study to help Sir Robert, and she was aware that there was a grave interchange of glances between the two dreadful young people when the baronet made any remark about her work for him.
She was quite glad when George had to go back to Sandhurst, as, although she was aware that Minnie watched and noted as well in her brother’s absence as if he had been there, still there was now no one with whom she could exchange her stealthy little looks, and that, Rhoda felt, was a relief.
When Jack came back in the following week, Lady Sarah seemed to wake up into life again, as The Terrors had said. Sir Robert, too, took as much pleasure as before in his society, and enjoyed it as guilelessly as ever.
It was on the second night after Jack Rotherfield’s arrival at the Mill-house that Rhoda, who always slept with her window open and the curtains drawn back, woke up about one o’clock and fancied that she saw a moving light in the garden. At first not more than half awake, she watched the glimmer vaguely, without even wondering what it was. Then, her drowsiness suddenly yielding to complete wakefulness, she sat up in bed and looked out.
Yes. There certainly was an unusual light in the garden, and crossing the floor quickly, she saw that it was the reflection of some unseen light that she saw flickering on the grass by the side of the water.
At first she was rather alarmed, thinking that there might be a policeman with his lantern in the grounds, and that some one might have got in for an unlawful purpose.
There had been, at various times, small thefts discovered of plants and fruit from the grounds, which were extensive and in some parts easy of access from outside.
But then a fresh thought struck her. The wing containing the long gallery, which housed Sir Robert’s collection, extended northwards to some distance from the main building, and was screened from her sight by shrubs and trees.
It now occurred to Rhoda that the light she saw might be reflected through the windows of the gallery, and the horrible fear flashed through her mind that the building might be on fire.
After watching for some moments, however, she decided that the light was too steady, and again it occurred to her to wonder whether any unauthorised person had got inside. Now that Sir Robert kept both sets of keys himself, she was free from responsibility, but her interest in the collection being as strong as ever, she could not rest until she had ascertained the meaning of the light.
Hastily dressing, with her eyes always keenly watching, she slipped out of her room and down the stairs.
Half way down she stopped, clammy and cold, with a sudden sickly recollection of the night, ten years before, when she had glided down the stairs in similar fashion.
For the moment memory rose up so strong within her, that she could almost have fancied she heard again the struggle going on in the drawing-room, and that she saw once more, in the moonlight, the blood-stained hand which she now knew to have been that of Jack Rotherfield.
The idea seized her that now she would find him involved in a fresh mystery, and recoiling from a possible discovery, she had turned, almost resolved to creep back to her room and give up her expedition, when the sound of a key turned in a lock struck her ear.
There was something going on, something wrong. For Sir Robert’s sake she must conquer her repugnance, and find out what it was. She almost prayed that she might find that a burglar had got into the house, but she knew that the solution of the mystery would be something more unpleasant than that.
Hurriedly reaching the bottom of the staircase, she turned in the direction of the gallery. She had to pass through Sir Robert’s study, and the door of this room she found suspiciously left open. So too was the door beyond, which led into the little passage at the end of which was the door leading into the gallery.
As she entered the study, and made her way across to the opposite door, she became aware of a tell-tale sound: it was a whisper. She could not hear any words: she could not distinguish the voice; but the fact was conclusive: since some one whispered, there must be some one to whisper to; there were at least two persons somewhere close by, and Rhoda had no difficulty in making a guess who those two persons were.
And, remembering the disappearance of the snuff-boxes, she could have little doubt as to the sort of errand which had taken them to Sir Robert’s gallery.
Lady Sarah had robbed her husband before, she had now apparently taken an accomplice to help her to rob him again.
This was the thought in Rhoda’s mind, as, full of indignation, and regardless of the consequences to herself, she crossed the floor of the study, and groped her way into the passage beyond.
There was no light there, and she presently hesitated, filled with the uncanny fear none of us can help in the dark, in the presence of some one whom we cannot see, but who, we have reason to think, may be able to see us.
For, compared with the pitchy blackness of the passage into which she was stepping, the study behind her was light.
She paused. Dead silence.
She took one step forward nervously.
There was a rush of air, and then she found herself seized, blindfolded, gagged, and lifted off her feet. She tried to cry out, but a hand was over her mouth. She felt herself flung down upon something which was not hard, and then stifled, suffocated, buried.
Again she tried to cry out, but the only result was that she felt herself thrust down, breathless, panting, gasping, fighting for air under a great and oppressive weight.
She struggled, but in vain, and then, half fainting, she lay quite still.
Then again she fancied that she heard a whisper, which seemed to come from a long way off. The weight was removed, there was a slight noise, and struggling once more, she suddenly found herself free, and safe, and alone.
Then she understood what had happened to her. She had been thrown on the springy morocco-covered couch in the study, covered over with all the available cushions, hassocks, and table-cloths, and then, when she ceased to struggle, she had been left to herself, with the result that her first movement had landed her on the floor, where she found herself surrounded by the tablecloths and cushions which had been used to stifle her cries.
She scrambled to her feet, groped her way to the door, and went through into the hall.
Whom should she rouse? Although she felt sure that the thieves would not be discovered, that the affair would end as the theft of the snuff-boxes had done, yet it was necessary for her own sake that she should make known at once the adventure she had passed through.
So she went upstairs to the housekeeper’s bedroom, told her what had happened, and asked her to inform the baronet of her suspicions that some one had broken into the gallery.
Ten minutes later the whole household was astir. Mrs. Hawkes had roused Sir Robert, who gave directions that the menservants were to be sent into the grounds to look for the supposed burglar, and in the meantime he himself came out of his room, and learned all that Rhoda had to tell him on his way downstairs.
On reaching the gallery, and turning up the electric light, the baronet was not long in discovering the nature of the fresh loss he had sustained. The Romney, a beautiful picture of Lady Hamilton, had been cut neatly out of its frame.
The sky-light in the roof of the gallery was broken, and all hands, including those of Lady Sarah and Jack Rotherfield, who were among those roused by the commotion, pointed up to this, by which they all supposed that the burglars had made their entrance.
Amid the general commotion, however, a shrill girlish voice piped out:
“They didn’t get in that way. Somebody broke the glass with that pole.”
It was The Terror, Minnie Mallory, who made this announcement, pointing drily as she did so to the long pole, with a hook at the end, which was used to draw backwards and forwards the blind which kept out, when necessary, the strong sunlight.
The words caused a singular sensation in the assembled group. They were received at first in dead silence, and then there were whispers and stealthy glances exchanged.
Lady Sarah went up to her husband, and slid her hand confidentially through his arm:
“Send them away,” she whispered. “I don’t believe it’s a burglar at all. Remember how the snuff-boxes went. Depend upon it, the picture’s gone the same way.”
“What way?” faltered Sir Robert, in a voice as low as her own.
“Better not ask,” she whispered back.
Gradually, as it were melting away, the little crowd broke up, dispersed. There was a horrible sense of mystery and guilt upon everybody. The members of the household almost felt as if they individually had been concerned in the robbery of Sir Robert.
Rhoda found herself left alone, and as she went back to her room, sick at heart, with the whispers of the household buzzing in her ears, she remembered that Sir Robert had not addressed one word to her since making the discovery of the loss of his picture.
Was it possible that he suspected her?
What had Lady Sarah whispered to him?
Rhoda, with her sickening, deadly, knowledge of the truth, knowledge almost as certain as if she had seen the faces and heard the voices of the thieves, felt that her brain reeled under the weight of the secret she had to bear.
Suddenly she was startled, as she went slowly up the stairs, by feeling a small, thin hand tucked into her arm.
“Nice business this, isn’t it?”
She started. It was Minnie Mallory who spoke, and in her light eyes Rhoda saw that she too made a shrewd guess at the truth.
“Hush!” said Rhoda.
“Oh, yes, it is ‘Hush’ this time—till George comes home,” retorted Minnie as she nodded and left her to go to her own room.
Rhoda went back to hers in a sort of dream. She scarcely slept that night, and the next day she was pale, haggard, and miserable.
Nobody talked of anything but the robbery. Jack professed his intention of going to Scotland Yard and giving information to the police about the theft.
“Such a thing as a valuable picture,” said he, “can easily be traced when the thieves offer it for sale.”
Sir Robert seemed to acquiesce in this proposal, and soon after breakfast Jack Rotherfield’s motor-car came round to take him up to town.
Rhoda was watching the packing of the luggage inside the car with curious eyes. Presently a gun-case was brought out of the house by a footman, who went indoors again when he had stowed it away.
With flushed cheeks and brilliant eyes Rhoda walked deliberately down the two broad stone steps, and took the gun-case out of the motor-car.
As she did so, she looked up, and her eyes met those of Jack Rotherfield, who was standing on the other side of the car.
“What are you doing?” said he. “That’s my gun-case.”
Rhoda, now as pale as a moment before she had been red, looked at him steadily.
“I’m going to take it into the study,” said she. “I’m going to open it, in the presence of Sir Robert.”
“The devil you are,” retorted the young man, and a look of diabolical rage shot out of his dark eyes. “Give it back to me, Miss Pembury. You are behaving like a mad woman.”
But Rhoda had turned, and, with the gun-case held fast, had run back into the house.
The next moment she, half-way to the study, found herself tapped sharply on the shoulder. Jack Rotherfield was behind her, stooping to whisper to her.
“What are your terms?” asked he in her ear.
“Take out what is inside this case, and leave it with me,” said she in a voice as low as his.
“All right,” said he sullenly.
The next moment, in the half-light of the passage, he had opened the gun-case, taken out something rolled up in brown paper, and thrust it angrily into her arms.
“There you are then. Confound you!” growled he, as he turned quickly away with the empty case.
Rhoda’s brain reeled again.
She knew that she had got the Romney safe in her arms.
Inthe half-dark passage Rhoda stood, alone, when Jack Rotherfield had left her, uncertain what to do.
The first impulse of thankfulness and delight, in the thought that she had rescued Sir Robert’s favourite picture, that in a few moments he would be congratulating himself on its safe return, was quickly succeeded by a feeling of horror, of dread, when she realised the ever-increasing difficulties of her own position.
What should she say to him? How should she explain the manner in which she had obtained possession of the lost treasure?
To tell the whole truth was, for many reasons, out of the question.
In the first place, Jack Rotherfield, in asking her her terms, had, as it were, bound her in honour not to betray him; and, although she now appreciated the fact that, in keeping silence, she would be compounding a felony, she did not know what else to do.
Certainly Jack deserved to be denounced as a thief, and a traitor to his best friend. Remembering the horrible affair of ten years before, and that he had been concerned in it, she recognised that he must be a man wholly without conscience or sense of honour, since he could rob his best friend, deceive him, and even incur the guilt of a worse crime.
Whether the death of poor Langton were the result of murder or manslaughter, the silence of the man who had caused it gave reason for the worst suspicions.
But that was not by any means the whole of the difficulty. Even supposing that Rhoda had felt it her duty to denounce Jack to Sir Robert, regardless of the tacit obligation she was now under to be silent about his share in the theft of the picture, how could she take upon herself to open up such a disastrous series of questions as the baronet would naturally ask? How could she undertake the task of enlightening him as to the extent to which his own wife was involved in the deception which had been practised upon him?
And that it would be impossible to denounce Jack Rotherfield without involving Lady Sarah she felt sure.
Investigations would be made, interrogatories instituted, which would end in complete discovery. Even short of that, Rhoda doubted whether Lady Sarah would suffer her accomplice to be found guilty without confessing, tacitly or otherwise, to her share in his guilt.
But granted that even that difficulty were safely surmounted, and Jack Rotherfield ostracised, would not the result have consequences to be dreaded?
If Sir Robert were once to learn of the theft, he would certainly go on to learn the share Jack had had in the murder of the servant. And what questions would then be asked? What revelations would be made?
Again Lady Sarah’s name would be introduced into the discussion, and the tottering fabric of the domestic happiness of both husband and wife would come down with a crash.
Precarious as it was, Rhoda knew that the position was better left alone: her aim must be to consolidate such domestic peace as was possible in the household, not to involve the family in irretrievable ruin.
Uncertain and miserable, she remained standing in the darkest part of the passage which led from the hall to the study, at one moment taking a step forward to the room where she knew Sir Robert to be, at another moving slowly in the opposite direction, with the idea of carrying the picture up to her own room until she should have prepared the way for its restoration.
What if she were to leave it at the study door, for Sir Robert to find when he should come out?
But she shrank from the thought of this. For might it not involve her in difficulties of her own? Might it not result, if she were to restore it thus in an underhand way and without a word of explanation, that she herself would be suspected to have had a hand, not only in the restoration of the picture, but in the theft of it?
She shuddered at the thought. Not for the world would she have risked the loss of the baronet’s good opinion. She must find some better way than that of giving back the treasure.
She had not yet made up her mind, when she heard a light rustling on the stairs above her, saw the flutter of a lacy petticoat, caught a glimpse of a jewelled hand. Then, before she could move from where she stood, Rhoda found herself a prisoner. Lady Sarah was beside her, blocking the way to retreat.
“What’s that?” asked she in a low voice, touching the parcel which the girl carried in her arms.
But Rhoda, in the half-darkness, only looked reproachfully into her face, without uttering a word. She was sure that Lady Sarah knew as well as she did what she was holding, and that she knew, too, what had happened. Indeed there was just enough of a certain acerbity underneath the lady’s assumed frivolity of manner as she touched the roll, for Rhoda to be certain that Jack, before going, had told her everything.
Receiving no verbal answer, Lady Sarah looked up closely into the face of the other. Then she nestled up to her in the most caressing manner.
“You are ill,” she said. “What is the matter? Come with me, come into my room and let me look at you. Yes, yes, I insist.”
Rhoda would have resisted, protested, would have made her escape. But there was no getting away from the self-willed mistress of the house when she had made up her mind.
Lady Sarah had made no further inquiries about the parcel which Rhoda was holding tightly in her arms, and this reticence was suggestive.
“I’m not ill indeed. I’m going to my room,” said Rhoda.
“No, no, you’ll come to my boudoir first.”
She led the girl up the stairs, and they entered the beautiful room with its silk panels and white enamel, and here Lady Sarah made Rhoda sit by the fire, and, taking a chair close to her, asked again, “Now, what is it? Tell me all about it. What’s that you’re carrying?”
Rhoda turned towards her with sudden fierceness.
“You know very well what it is,” she said.
For a moment the spoilt beauty was taken aback. The colour faded out of her lips and cheeks as she sat back in silence. Rhoda looked at her steadily:
“You know what this parcel is, and you know how I got it,” she went on.
Lady Sarah recovered herself.
“Really I don’t understand you,” she said coldly. “I haven’t the least idea what it is you are carrying.”
“Yes, you have, you know it’s the picture, the Romney, which was stolen from the gallery. And more than that, you know who it was that stole it,” cried Rhoda defiantly.
Lady Sarah drew a long breath. She was frightened, in spite of heraplomb, and for the moment she did not know how to meet this direct attack.
Rhoda burst into tears.
“Oh, Lady Sarah, what is the use of pretending? You know all about it, and as I know it too, what is the use of acting? It’s a dreadful thing, a terrible thing, and it’s very hard that I should be dragged into it, that I should have had to be obliged to do what I did to get it back. No, don’t look as if you didn’t know all about that too. Mr. Rotherfield told you, I’m sure, before he went away.”
Lady Sarah was leaning on her hand. She was now deadly white, and her eyes seemed to have become twice their natural size. With laboured breathing she gasped out:
“What are you going to do? I don’t admit anything. I don’t know anything. But just tell me what you have in your mind.”
“I must give the picture back to Sir Robert. And—I must tell him how I got it. There is no help for it, is there?”
Lady Sarah sprang off her chair and walked rapidly up and down the room, her draperies flying about her, her hair disordered, her face haggard with strong emotion. Then, quite unexpectedly, she paused in her walk, and then threw herself on her knees in front of Rhoda.
Clasping her hands together, she placed them on the knees of the other woman, and looked up earnestly into her face.
“Do you know what will happen, if you do that?” she asked abruptly.
Rhoda hesitated.
“You’ve got to know what you’re doing,” went on Lady Sarah. “Mind, I know nothing about this picture affair. I’ve heard nothing but what you’ve told me. But I gather that what you’re carrying in that roll is the picture which was stolen out of the gallery last night.”
“You know it is.”
“I know nothing. But let us say that it is the picture. What are you going to tell Sir Robert?”
Rhoda hesitated again. Lady Sarah went on passionately:
“Are you going to make up some story of its having been restored to you?”
“I’m going to tell the truth,” cut in Rhoda brusquely. “I’m going to say that I watched the packing of Mr. Rotherfield’s luggage inside his car, that I saw the gun-case put in, that I took it out with my own hands, and that Mr. Rotherfield followed me back into the house, stopped me, and let me take the picture out.”
“How did you know—supposing this strange story is true—that the picture was in the gun-case?”
“I guessed it.”
Lady Sarah looked alarmed.
“You are very inquisitive,” she said sharply.
“Oh, Lady Sarah, how can I help it, when such things happen as have happened here?”
Lady Sarah drew a deep breath.
“Things! What things?” escaped her lips in spite of herself.
“Well, I know more than I have told you. Not through any curiosity on my part, but because I couldn’t help it.”
Lady Sarah looked askance at her, but did not venture to ask any more questions.
“Go on,” she said petulantly. “Go on with this fairy tale that you intend to tell Sir Robert.”
“That’s all. It will be for Sir Robert himself to make inquiries. All I have to tell him is how I became possessed of the picture.”
“Very well,” said Lady Sarah, in an attitude and with an expression of calm despair. “And do you know what will happen when you’ve told him?”
“It will not concern me. I shall have done what I had to do, and I shall go away.”
“After having succeeded in wrecking Sir Robert’s happiness and mine. Oh, yes, it is of no use to shake your head, that is what you will have done. Do you think he will be content to receive back the picture, and to accept your story, without making any inquiries? It is absurd to think such a thing. He will certainly find out that you have not told him the truth, because he knows Jack, and can trust him, and Jack will assure him that there is no truth in your preposterous story. But you will have sown the seed of mistrust in my husband, and you will have spoilt every chance there was of our continuing to live happily together. And that after your lectures to me, after your assurance that you were so grateful to him that all you wished for was his happiness!”
Rhoda was crying quietly, with her face hidden. She knew that the picture drawn by Lady Sarah would probably prove to be, in its main outlines, correct. Jack and Lady Sarah would certainly deny all that Rhoda said, and it was scarcely likely that, in the long run, with his admiration for his wife and his fondness for Jack at war with his confidence in Rhoda, he would end by taking her part against the other two.
Nevertheless, even if he allowed Rhoda to go away in disgrace, perhaps herself under suspicion of having committed the theft, it was probable that, as Lady Sarah suggested, the seeds of mistrust would have been sown within him, and there would be a change for the worse in the domestic life of the household.
Suddenly Rhoda looked up, in desperation.
“What can I do?” she asked. “I can’t let him be deceived. And Mr. Rotherfield is behaving infamously, Lady Sarah; he is robbing his best friend. Don’t deny it. You know that it is the truth; at least, that it is part of the truth.”
Lady Sarah turned pale again.
Then she suddenly unclasped her hands, and clung to Rhoda, coaxing, piteous, irresistible. It was part of the charm of this wayward woman that she could transform herself, without a moment’s notice, into a sort of grown-up child, helpless, weak, plaintive, lost in doubts and fears, begging for help, for kindness, for guidance.
That was what she seemed to be now, as she looked with imploring eyes into Rhoda’s face, and whispered:
“Don’t do it, don’t do it, dear. You wouldn’t like to break up the home, you wouldn’t like to make poor Sir Robert miserable. Even if what you thought were true, that is what would happen, if you were to tell him what you mean to tell.”
Rhoda trembled. It was almost impossible to resist the clinging hands, the appealing eyes, knowing as she did know that the danger of a break-up was real. Whatever might be the exact result of her telling Sir Robert the truth, as far as she knew it, Rhoda thought it more likely than not that it would take some tragic form.
“What do you suggest yourself that I should do?” she asked.
Lady Sarah recovered some of her brightness of manner, her alertness, upon the instant.
“I propose that you should give the picture to me, and that I should give it back to Sir Robert myself, telling him that the thief left it at the house, with a note begging to be forgiven for what he had done.”
But Rhoda frowned impatiently.
“No, no,” she said. “Don’t tell him more lies. You may give back the picture yourself, if you like, but on condition that you tell the truth, that you confess who it was that stole it, and say that he, Mr. Rotherfield, has given it back and begs forgiveness. It will be a shock to him, of course, to find who it was that did it, but at any rate it is better that he should be shocked than that he should be further deceived.”
Lady Sarah, however, shook her head.
“He would never forgive him. I couldn’t tell him that. Unless,” her face brightened, as a fresh idea struck her, “I might perhaps be able to persuade him that it was a rough practical joke! I might take the blame of that upon myself.”
“Yes, yes. Sir Robert would forgive you anything, anything,” urged Rhoda.
Already Lady Sarah had sprung up from her knees and seized the rolled-up picture.
“I’ll go at once,” said she, “and make him happy.”
But Rhoda was not satisfied. Misgivings had seized her the moment she saw the lady’s quick recovery from her depression. She was troubled, also, as to the extent to which she could rely upon her keeping her word.
“Lady Sarah,” she urged in a trembling voice, “remember this is not the only thing that has to be given back. The snuff-boxes——”
But the spoilt beauty was already at the door. Looking back over her shoulder, and laughing mischievously, she said, quite in her old, buoyant, happy manner:
“Snuff-boxes! Oh, dear, I know nothing about those! If he suspects, he’ll have to make his own discoveries. One surprise is enough for him at a time!”
And the next moment she had flitted out of the room, lightly tripping along, relieved from all care herself, but leaving Rhoda oppressed by a strong sense that she had not made the most of her opportunity.
She felt that she ought to have been more exacting, that she should have made more stringent conditions, that she ought perhaps even to have gone the length of insisting that she should accompany Lady Sarah on her errand to Sir Robert.
But it was too late for regrets, too late for anything but unwilling acquiescence in the bold plan which the wilful lady had conceived, for giving up the stolen Romney.
But Rhoda wondered, as she slowly went out of the boudoir, and to Caryl’s room, where the boy was waiting for her, what story it was that Lady Sarah would end by telling her husband? Would she go as near the truth as she had promised to do? Would she confess to having been one of the conspirators, and to Jack Rotherfield’s having been the other? And would she say, as she proposed, that the whole affair was nothing more than a practical joke?
If she did, would not even the gentle, unsuspicious Sir Robert turn round upon her with a question about the stolen snuff-boxes?
By no stretch of imagination could he be induced to believe, if once he were told that Lady Sarah and Jack were engaged in the robbery of the picture, that they were innocent of the other theft.
More and more slowly Rhoda walked, as she told herself, with a little shudder, that she could not trust Lady Sarah, and that the story she was telling her husband, whatever it be, would not implicate either herself or Jack Rotherfield.
IfRhoda could have followed Lady Sarah into the study, she would have discovered that her suspicions and forebodings were amply justified.
Sir Robert was deep in his studies when she entered like a whirlwind, with bright eyes and voluble tongue, bearing in her arms a roll in which the baronet altogether failed to recognise his lost picture.
“Bertie, Bertie, look here, I’ve news, good news for you!” she cried with excitement, as she dashed across the floor and plunged her burden into the midst of his letters and papers, his books and his writing materials.
“Good gracious, my dear, what is it?”
She sprang up, clapped her hands, nodded her head, and beamed upon him.
“See for yourself,” said she.
He rose from his chair with a troubled look on his face. Although he now guessed what the surprise was which was in store for him, and although he had spent the night and morning in lamenting his loss, instinct told him that there was something to learn which he would rather not have known, in connection with the recovery of his treasure.
“What is it?” he asked hoarsely, as he touched the roll, and looked at her.
“I believe you know what it is,” replied she, “but if not, I’ll show you.”
Her hands were wet and trembling, for all her affectation of gaiety and unconcern, and it was with difficulty she performed the simple task of tearing the paper from the roll, and exhibiting its contents to her husband.
“There!” she said, rather tremulously, as she unrolled it, “Your picture! Back again, and quite safe and unharmed, I believe.”
But he looked at her with a frown.
“What does it mean?” he said hoarsely. “Who brought it back? Where does it come from?”
She glanced at him quickly. He was staring at the roll with a look of intense distress in his grave eyes. She drew her breath quickly, and glanced at him once more anxiously as she laughed, and said:
“I wish you would just take your luck, Bertie, without asking any questions.”
“How can I? I must know.”
“You’ll be sorry, and—and you’ll be angry,” faltered she, her colour coming and going.
“Never mind. I think you can trust me to be just.”
She suddenly made a spring at him, and held his arms, looking up with a bewitching air of entreaty into his face.
“Suppose some one you knew, and liked, and trusted, should have fallen a victim to a temptation too strong, under pressure of friends who wanted help badly. What then?”
“Well, who is it?”
His voice was stern, almost hard. Lady Sarah, frightened, began to weep.
“I can’t tell you,” she said quickly, “while you look like that. I daren’t.”
He patted her shoulder kindly.
“Nonsense,” he said. “You can trust me to be just.”
“I don’t ask you to be just, I want you to be merciful. I want you to promise that you will accept this act of restitution without any questions, and that you will be satisfied not to speak of the matter again. The thief has repented, as you see, and has proved repentance.”
“I must know who it is,” said Sir Robert, with more sternness than he had ever used to his wife before.
“Yes, if you will promise to forgive and—forget.”
“I promise,” said Sir Robert after a pause.
He was looking pale and anxious in his turn, as he sat down, after placing a chair for his wife, and folding his hands, kept his head bent, as he waited for her promised revelation.
“What would you say if you were to learn that it was a lady in your employment, one who has proved herself very useful, very devoted, who yielded to a temptation she couldn’t resist?” said she.