I was staggered at the sound of my own voice. All day I had been mute, observing so obediently Aunt Jael's "To be seen and not heard" mandate that she had been almost annoyed. Listening was more remunerative than talking; it yielded the wealth for my lonely talks with myself. I think it was that in my interest in this mysterious death I forgot I was not alone; and so uttered aloud the word "Poison" that leapt absurdly to my mind.
The effect on Uncle Simeon's face amazed me.
His look of meek head-nodding sorrow gave place to one of such unmistakable guilt that the most monstrous suspicions seized me; nor did they disappear when guilt changed to fear, then fear to hate; still less when hate in its turn gave place to the meek accustomed mask. Mask it was, for I had seen him deliberately twitch the muscles of his face back into position. From that moment, and with no other evidence than a few seconds' change of expression, in which my eyes might have been deceiving me, I believed him a murderer.
Grandmother and Aunt Jael saw nothing of this. The first was too short-sighted—the room was nearly dark, and no candle had been lighted—the second was too busy for the moment rating me for breaking laws and talking "outrageous nonsense" to keep her eyes on him.
This gave him time to twitch the muscles of his brain and tongue back into position also.
"Anyway, whatever the sad cause of his earthly death, one may rejoice that he went to be with the Lord."
"Yes, and that he left all his money to you. Leastways there was no will found, and you were next of kin. That helped to console you a little, maybe."
"Miss Vickary!"
"Yes, more than a little, too. It left you enough to close your shop in Bristol and do nothing ever since."