"A friend of mine—Miss Tyler. I brought her up with me, so that you should get her information at first hand. You can see her at once," and Diana rose to ring the bell.
"One moment," interposed Lucian, before she could touch the button. "Tell me if Miss Tyler knows your reason for bringing her up."
"I have not told her directly," said Diana, with some bluntness, "but as she is no fool, I fancy she suspects. Why do you ask?"
"Because I have something to tell you which I do not wish your friend to hear, unless," added Lucian significantly, "you desire to take her into our confidence."
"No," said Diana promptly. "I do not think it is wise to take her into our confidence. She is rather—well, to put it plainly, Mr. Denzil—rather a gossip."
"H'm! As such, do you consider her evidence reliable?"
"We can pick the grains of wheat out of the chaff. No doubt she exaggerates and garbles, after the fashion of a scandal-loving woman, but her evidence is valuable, especially as showing that Lydia was not at Bath on Christmas Eve. We will tell her nothing, so she can suspect as much as she likes; if we do speak freely she will spread the gossip, and if we don't, she will invent worse facts; so in either case it doesn't matter. What is it you have to tell me?"
Lucian could scarcely forbear smiling at Diana's candidly expressed estimate of her ally's character, but, fearful of giving offence to his companion, he speedily composed his features. With much explanation and an exhibition of Miss Greeb's plan, he gave an account of his discoveries, beginning with his visit to the cellar, and ending with the important conversation with his landlady. Diana listened attentively, and when he concluded gave it as her opinion that Lydia had entered the first yard by the side passage and had climbed over the fence into the second, "as is clearly proved by the veil," she concluded decisively.
"But why should she take all that trouble, and run the risk of being seen, when it is plain that your father expected her?"