My blood ran cold. But it turned out to be only a passing exclamation. At the end of what seemed to me minutes—they can only have been seconds—the footsteps moved on, and the door opened and closed.
“Thank God!” burst from Sophia.
Her next words were plainly an apostrophe to myself.
“So you did not trust me after all!”
I was within an ace of opening my eyes on the supposition that she had found me out, when I was reassured by her adding, this time to herself,
“He must have done it when I fainted!”
I saw that she was referring to my theft of the key.
There was a soft rustle of silk on the floor, and I felt her hands searching in my pockets for the stolen key.
“Fool! To think that I could outwit him!” she murmured to herself at last.
She had taken some time to learn the lesson, however.