And he shook hands with me, and Lady Mills kissed me, and Mrs. Clowes gave me a cold little bow; and they sent me off to bed without knowing even then the enormity of the breach of propriety I had committed.
Sir Jonas, who was going up to town the next morning, was to drive me to the Alders, and then go on to Beaconsburgh station. Every one—nearly every one, for Mrs. Clowes never came near me at all—bade me a very kind good-by; and, just as I was sitting in the phaeton, waiting for Sir Jonas to take his place beside me, Gordon, Mr. Carruthers’s mysterious servant, came up to me in his stolidly respectful manner, and said—
“I think this is something of yours, ma’am. You must have dropped it, for I found it on the stairs, and I am afraid it has been slightly injured.” And he put my pendant into my hands.
I was so much astonished that he was gone before I could even thank him; and then, turning it over in my hands, I found that the little shield on which the initials were engraved had been wrenched off.
Was Gordon himself the thief, and had he repented? Or had the person who took it been ashamed to restore it in person? Or had I really dropped it, and only dreamt that I put it away?
CHAPTER XVIII.
When Sir Jonas left me at the gate of the Alders that morning, a sense of desolation crept over me as I walked down the drive, followed by the gaunt Sarah carrying my little trunk—like a jailer rejoicing over a recaptured prisoner, I thought ungratefully to myself as I came in sight of the dark red ivy-covered walls of this house on the marsh, which, though I had lived in it two months, still had mysteries for me.
All the questions which had puzzled me about this household came into my mind again with new force after my short absence, which seemed, with its fresh experiences, to have lasted so long, together with others which had arisen while I listened to the talk of my new friends. Was Mrs. Rayner really mad? If so, how was it that no suspicion of the fact had reached that gossip-loving company I had just left, who had tales to tell of almost every family in the neighborhood? Why had the ladies called kind Mr. Rayner, who always went to church and led the simplest of lives, “dreadfully wicked”? They did not think it wrong to play the violin or to go to races. And why, if they thought him “dreadfully wicked,” did they all say they would give the world to know him? What was the relation between Mr. Rayner and Gordon, Mr. Carruthers’s servant? Then was Sarah really Mrs. Rayner’s guardian; and was she not herself a little mad too? What had become of the wild jealousy of Jane which she had expressed to the stranger in the plantation? And why did she hate me so? Had she stifled her hatred once and for all, or would she—Oh, what would she not do, if her wicked, senseless dislike of me should get the better of her again?
It was better to talk to her than to think of her, and I turned and asked after Mr. and Mrs. Rayner and Haidee. My pupil was not well, and had not got up that day; but Sarah would ask if I could go and see her.
“She caught cold, miss, wandering round the pond late Saturday night, because she said she could talk to you there. Such nonsense! But you know she is full of her fancies.”