“I'll show you,” said Fanny, and left the room.
She soon came back, holding something behind her back. Even at the last moment she was half unwilling. However, she looked down, and said, in a very peculiar tone, “Here is the handkerchief he put before his face at the opera; there!” and she threw it into Zoe's lap.
Zoe's nature revolted against evidence so obtained. She did not even take up the handkerchief. “What!” she cried; “you took it out of his pocket?”
“No.”
“Then you have been in his room and got it.”
“Nothing of the kind! I sent Rosa.”
“My maid!”
“Mine, for that job. I gave her half a crown to borrow it for a pattern.”
Zoe seized the handkerchief and ran her eye over it in a moment. There was no trace of blood on it, and there were his initials, “E. S.,” in the corner. Her woman's eye fastened instantly on these. “Silk?” said she, and held it up to the light. “No. Hair!—golden hair. It is hers!” And she flung the handkerchief from her as if it were a viper, and even when on the ground eyed it with dilating orbs and a hostile horror.
“La!” said Fanny; “fancy that! You are not blind now. You have seen more than I. I made sure it was yellow silk.”