The words came quite naturally from the child’s mouth, but they produced a most curious and painful impression upon his two hearers. Sir Robert seemed for the moment stunned by them, as, glancing at Rhoda, he saw upon her face an expression of dismay which was like a sudden illumination to him.
“Yes, we’ve got Jack too, of course,” he said presently, recovering himself although there was a change in his voice, “but he isn’t here always.”
“Nearly always, when mama’s here,” persisted the boy simply. “And you’ve always got your pictures, haven’t you? Anne says you’ve got back the one you thought was stolen.”
Again there was a look upon Rhoda’s face which roused Sir Robert’s keenest attention and interest.
“Yes, I’ve got my picture back,” said he. “Who told you about that?”
“Oh, I heard Anne talking about it to Mrs. Hawkes. That was this morning. And then when Anne came in a little while ago she told me you had got it back, nobody knew how.”
Rhoda turned her head away, feeling that there was a guilty look on her face which Sir Robert’s unusually penetrating gaze seemed to challenge. She did not want to meet his eyes again; ever since those first words of the boy’s about Jack she had been conscious of an excitement, a restlessness in Sir Robert’s demeanour, which were quite unusual with him, and she dreaded the thought of a tête-à-tête with him—which, however, she saw to be inevitable.
“By the bye, Miss Pembury, I should like to hear your account of the return of the picture,” said the baronet in the gentlest of voices, as Rhoda took the opportunity, when father and son were looking at each other, to leave her post by the side of the couch, and to glide hastily towards the door.
He had followed her and was holding the door open for her.
“Are you going to take Rhoda away, papa?” piped out the small voice from the couch near the window.