He was far too loyal himself to suspect disloyalty in his nearest and dearest, and his conjecture was that it was some member of his household, one of the under servants, and not one of those who had been in his service many years, who had committed the theft both of the picture and of the snuff-boxes.
Knowing, as he did, that Rhoda had been the first to discover the theft of the picture, he decided that she must have found out more than she confessed to have done, but that she held her peace until she had forced the thief to restore at least part of the plunder.
Withal he was hurt to think that she had not come straight to him herself. Surely she might have known that she could come to him without fear, and that he would temper justice with mercy.
The consequence of this slight feeling of injury was a certain coldness in his manner when he met her at luncheon; and the unhappy Rhoda at once jumped to the conclusion that he suspected her of the theft. She thus did less than justice to him, and more than justice to his wife. For she little thought that the artful Lady Sarah had done her very best to divert suspicion from herself and Jack Rotherfield by accusing the companion of her little son.
Rhoda was heartbroken. She was crying quietly by herself in a distant corner of the grounds, when she suddenly found two long lean arms put round her neck from behind, and heard Minnie Mallory’s voice in her ear, saying in tones of encouragement:
“Look here, don’t you cry. Aunt Sally’s been making mischief, I suppose, with Uncle Bertie?”
Rhoda was startled, and turning quickly, asked the girl what she meant.
By this time Minnie, with a battered and bent hat cocked over one eye, was squatting on the grass like a large-sized toad, looking up at her keenly out of her light eyes.
“What was in that gun-case?” she asked suddenly.
Rhoda dashed away her own tears and stared at the girl in dismay. Was Minnie a witch?