"Hush! Lettice, my child," and he spoke pleadingly, "you will not leave me to believe this. It is too dreadful. The thing cannot be. Stand up, and look at me, and say I am mistaken."
Why should the thing not be? What did he know of Felix, to make any such confident assertion? What did any of them know? If she could have been sure, she of all people living would have been sure! But what security had she! Lettice neither rose or lifted her eyes.
"It cannot be true!" Yet there was now in his voice a tone as of one yielding to conviction against his will, and Theodosia, was quick to note the change. "If you had wanted money, for yourself or Felix, surely you would have asked me. That you should be a thief! You! It is impossible."
His meaning dawned upon her slowly. She to take the note! A sense of positive absurdity in the notion almost made her laugh; and then, sharp as lightning, came the thought, "If I deny it, they will suspect Felix!" She had all but exclaimed, "I! No!" and this recollection sealed her lips.
"Child, stand up, and look me in the face. Do you hear?"
She obeyed the stern order, though not easily, for her limbs shook. It was the first time that he had ever spoken sternly to Lettice; and the pain of having him so speak, of letting him think such a thing of her, turned her sick again, while the room seemed full of mist; but her clear eyes looked out from the wax-white face straight up into Dr. Bryant's, none the less straight because of intervening mist, and whatever the Doctor saw there he did not read guilt. The question following was not what she expected.
"Are you faint?"
"I don't know. Only—just—"
"Just a little. You had better go to bed at once. It is getting late. I will look into this to-morrow morning."
Lettice made no protest. The one thing she desired was to be alone, to have time for consideration. Dr. Bryant, always gentle to any one in suffering, gave her a helping hand to the door. Then, finding that she could walk sufficiently well, he left her to go upstairs alone, returned to his wife, and said: "This must go no farther, if you please."