Theodosia paid no heed. She went on "pitchforking" the mixed contents of her desk, and Dr. Bryant took the matter into his own hands. Lettice sat watching, with a look of interest, hardly amounting to concern. Theodosia stepped back, still with averted eyes, and evident agitation.
"I locked the desk so carefully. Nobody can have been to it since," she said after a while.
"No:" and the Doctor continued his systematic search.
"Not here," was at length his decision. "You must have put it elsewhere—unthinkingly. Are you sure it is not in your purse?"
She turned out her pocket mutely, and opened the purse.
"Stay—you had on another dress. What of that?"
"I looked there—I mean, I have only this purse—I had only that in the other pocket, and when I changed my dress, I moved it."
"You looked there!"
"I don't know what I'm saying. It has flustered me so." She sat down and put her hands over her face. "I don't know what to think."
Dr. Bryant was again conscious of something unsatisfactory about his wife's manner; something which to his consciousness had about it a ring of untruth. Yet he never could endure to suspect her without full proof; and he had no proof.