“Nonsense,” whispered she. “I know all about it. I know what’s the matter. Only of course I couldn’t allude to it before the servants. Come into the drawing-room and let us talk it over.”
Trembling and reluctant, but unable to resist the wilful beauty, even though she hated her for her dissimilation and her treachery, Rhoda had to consent to a tête-à-tête which she would have given the world to avoid.
In to the brightly lighted apartment, therefore, which could scarcely be recognised as the old drawing-room where the unhappy Langton had met his death, Rhoda was dragged. Lady Sarah threw her down into the deep-seated settee near the fireplace, and pulling across the floor a high round stool, she seated herself upon it, embraced her knees like a child, and nodded gravely at the girl two or three times.
“Yes, I know all about it,” she said. “Sir Robert told me. Some wretch has stolen three or four of Sir Robert’s patch-boxes, and you and he thinks that your keys or his must have been got at. It’s very unpleasant and uncomfortable, and I’m sorry for your sake. But not so much for any other. It will be a lesson to Sir Robert not to waste so much money as he does on things that he could enjoy just as well in a museum, and which can never be made quite safe in a private house.”
Rhoda stared at her stupidly.
If Lady Sarah’s expressed opinion was not genuine, it was an excellent piece of acting. She was frank, sympathetic, kindly, and not in the least inclined to exaggerate the importance of the loss, or to impute blame to Rhoda.
“It’s—it’s a dreadful thing for me,” stammered Rhoda, without quite knowing whether she was or was not ashamed of her own suspicions.
“Why? You surely don’t suppose we think it was your fault? As Sir Robert himself says, it is just as likely that his keys were used as that yours were.”
Rhoda shook her head.
“They were taken out of my pocket—and put back again,” she said shortly. “They were missing when I first came back from the Priory, and they were restored during the time I was talking to Sir Robert about it.”