The change in her countenance was so sudden and so marked that I turned quickly about, thinking that some one had entered the room. But it was not that; it was something quite different—something which called up more than one emotion—something which both lifted her head and caused it to droop again as if pride were battling with humiliation in her dismayed heart.
“Won’t you finish, Orpha?” I begged. “You said that you had told only one person about it and that this person was not Wealthy. Who, then, was it?”
“Lucy,” she breathed, bringing her hands, which had been lying supine in her lap, sharply together in a passionate clutch.
“Lucy! Ah!”
“She was with me the night I dropped the flower pot and picked up the chain and key from the scattered dirt. I had brought the pot from Father’s room the morning he died, for the flower in it was just opening and it seemed to speak of him. But I did not like the place where I had put it and was carrying it to another shelf, when it slipped from my hands. If I had left it in Father’s room the key might have been found long before; for I noticed on first watering it that the soil on top gave evidences of having been lately stirred up—something which made no impression on me, but which might have made a decisive one on the Inspector. Who do you think hid the key there? Father?”
“I wish I knew, Orpha; there are several things we do not know and never may now Wealthy is gone. But Miss Colfax? Tell me what passed between you when you talked about the key?”
It was a subject Orpha would have liked to avoid; which she would have avoided if I had not been insistent. Why? Had she begun to suspect the truth which made it hard for her to discuss her friend? Had some echo from the cry which for days had filled the spaces of the overhead rooms drifted down to her through the agency of some gossiping servant? It was likely; it was more than likely; it was true. I saw it in the proud detached air with which she waited for me to urge her into speech.
And I did urge her. It would not do at a moment when the shadows surrounding the past were so visibly clearing to allow one cloud to remain which might be dissipated by mutual confidence. So, gently, but persistently, I begged her to tell me the whole story that I might know just what pitfalls remained in our path.
LXI
Thus entreated, she no longer hesitated, though I noticed she stammered every time when obliged to speak the name of the woman who had shared with her—so much more than shared with her—Edgar’s affection.