The baronet laughed at her in the most reassuring manner, and pushed her gently into a chair.
“Don’t behave like that, you silly, silly girl!” said he in a robust and reassuring voice. “I see what it is: you haven’t found the keys. They’re gone. Is that it?”
She bowed her head in assent.
“I’m quite, quite sure I put them in my pocket this morning, and that I didn’t take them out again after I’d done my work in the gallery. Some one must have taken them out. Some one who knew where I kept them.”
She sat up and stared at him almost fiercely.
The words distressed him, she saw.
“Do you think that perhaps they fell as you were either putting them in or taking them out again? Do you think it possible that you may have let them drop, and that they may have been picked up by one of the servants? I should hate to have to suspect any member of my household, but there are some who have not been here long, and one knows that some one must have taken the snuff-boxes.”
“I should have heard them fall,” said Rhoda uncertainly.
“Do you think there was a hole in your pocket?”
“No. I don’t think so.”