The mill house mystery

by Florence Warden

And that it would be impossible to denounce Jack Rotherfield without involving Lady Sarah she felt sure.

Investigations would be made, interrogatories instituted, which would end in complete discovery. Even short of that, Rhoda doubted whether Lady Sarah would suffer her accomplice to be found guilty without confessing, tacitly or otherwise, to her share in his guilt.

But granted that even that difficulty were safely surmounted, and Jack Rotherfield ostracised, would not the result have consequences to be dreaded?

If Sir Robert were once to learn of the theft, he would certainly go on to learn the share Jack had had in the murder of the servant. And what questions would then be asked? What revelations would be made?

Again Lady Sarah’s name would be introduced into the discussion, and the tottering fabric of the domestic happiness of both husband and wife would come down with a crash.

Precarious as it was, Rhoda knew that the position was better left alone: her aim must be to consolidate such domestic peace as was possible in the household, not to involve the family in irretrievable ruin.

Uncertain and miserable, she remained standing in the darkest part of the passage which led from the hall to the study, at one moment taking a step forward to the room where she knew Sir Robert to be, at another moving slowly in the opposite direction, with the idea of carrying the picture up to her own room until she should have prepared the way for its restoration.

What if she were to leave it at the study door, for Sir Robert to find when he should come out?

But she shrank from the thought of this. For might it not involve her in difficulties of her own? Might it not result, if she were to restore it thus in an underhand way and without a word of explanation, that she herself would be suspected to have had a hand, not only in the restoration of the picture, but in the theft of it?

She shuddered at the thought. Not for the world would she have risked the loss of the baronet’s good opinion. She must find some better way than that of giving back the treasure.