“No, to the reception room.”
“I do not understand. It is all dreadful; and no one tells me anything.”
“I pray God there may be nothing to tell. Judging from your present faith in your cousin, there will not be. Take comfort, then, and be assured I will inform you if anything occurs which you ought to know.”
Giving her a look of encouragement, I left her crushed against the crimson pillows of the sofa on which she sat, and rejoined Mr. Gryce. We had scarcely entered the reception room when Eleanore Leavenworth came in.
More languid than she was an hour before, but haughty still, she slowly advanced, and, meeting my eye, gently bent her head.
“I have been summoned here,” said she, directing herself exclusively to Mr. Gryce, “by an individual whom I take to be in your employ. If so, may I request you to make your wishes known at once, as I am quite exhausted, and am in great need of rest.”
“Miss Leavenworth,” returned Mr. Gryce, rubbing his hands together and staring in quite a fatherly manner at the door-knob, “I am very sorry to trouble you, but the fact is I wish to ask you——”
But here she stopped him. “Anything in regard to the key which that man has doubtless told you he saw me drop into the ashes?”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Then I must refuse to answer any questions concerning it. I have nothing to say on the subject, unless it is this:”—giving him a look full of suffering, but full of a certain sort of courage, too—“that he was right if he told you I had the key in hiding about my person, and that I attempted to conceal it in the ashes of the grate.”