There was silence for some minutes. Mrs. Warmington gave the impression of being ready to be questioned, but Olivia was shy of taking advantage of the fact. The housekeeper glanced at her from time to time, as if hoping for some comment on her words. At last, as none came, she looked her visitor full in the face, and said—
“I see you know the story. Every one does, more or less; though there are not many who know the rights of it as well as I do.”
Olivia’s heart seemed to stand still.
“But you don’t think him guilty?” burst from her lips, in a tone which expressed more anxiety than she guessed. “You know him, perhaps, better than anybody; you know that he isn’t capable of anything so cruel, so base.”
Mrs. Warmington pursed up her withered lips in a judicial manner, poked the fire, and put on a fresh supply of coal, all with an air of being the chosen keeper of some great mystery. Olivia watched her, but without asking any more questions; she felt heartsick, miserable. Other people might guess; this old woman probably knew. At last the housekeeper solemnly broke silence.
“It’s hardly a tale for a young lady’s ears: perhaps it almost seems like a breach of confidence on my part to touch upon my employer’s secrets at all. But he has never made a confidante of me, and if there’s any one in the world who might use the knowledge I possess to Mr. Brander’s disadvantage, I know it is not you.”
The young girl felt a shamefaced flush rising in her cheeks. This woman spoke in a significant tone, implying that the depth of the interest Olivia took in her master was not unknown to her. The girl turned her head a little away, and stared at the fire with statuesque stillness while her companion continued—
“To begin with, I may tell you that the Branders are distant relations of mine. It does not make me love them the more, but it will prove to you that I have no interest in making them out to be worse than they are.”
Olivia assented with a slight bend of the head.
“I don’t deny that I have noticed the interest you take in my master, and as you are an inexperienced young girl, with some warm-hearted, and perhaps rather quixotic, notions, I think it right to put you in possession of the facts of this business, as I know them.”