“I do know it, of a surety. And if you suffer me, Father, to post you in a certain place that I wot of, behind the tapestry, you shall ere long know it too.”
Lucrece’s triumphant malice had carried her a step too far. Her father’s open, upright, honest mind was shocked at this suggestion.
“God forbid, girl!” he replied, hastily. “I will not play the eavesdropper on my own child. Hast thou done this, Lucrece?”
Lucrece saw that she must make her retreat from that position, and she did so “in excellent order.”
“Oh no, Father! how could I so? One day, I sat in the arbour yonder, and they two walked by, discoursing: and another day, when I sat in a window-seat in the hall, they came in a-talking, and saw me not. I could never do such a thing as listen unknown, Father!”
“Right, my lass: but it troubled me to hear thee name it.”
Sir Thomas walked on, lost in deep thought. Lucrece was silent until he resumed the conversation.
“Beads, and a cross!” He spoke to himself.
“I could tell you of other gear, Father,” said the low voice of the avenger. “As, a little image of Mary and John, which she keepeth in her jewel-closet; and a book wherein be prayers unto the angels and the saints. These he hath given her.”
Lucrece was making the worst of a matter in which Don Juan was undoubtedly to blame, but Blanche was much more innocent than her sister chose to represent her. On the rosary Blanche looked as a long necklace, such as were in fashion at the time; and while the elaborate enamelled pendant certainly was a cross, it had never appeared to her otherwise than a mere pendant. The little image was so extremely small, that she kept it in her jewel-closet lest it should be lost. The book, Don Juan’s private breviary, was in Latin, in which language studious Lucrece was a proficient, whilst idle Blanche could not have declined a single noun. The giver had informed her that he bestowed this breviary on her, his best beloved, because he held it dearest of all his treasures; and Blanche valued it on that account. Lucrece knew all this: for she had come upon Blanche in an unguarded moment, with the book in her hand and the rosary round her neck, and had to some extent forced her confidence—the more readily given, since Blanche never suspected treachery.