“Before you go, my lady, I must tell you something I happened to see while I waited with the horses,” he said.
The earnestness of his tone struck Florimel. She looked at him with eyes a little wider, and waited to hear.
“I happened to look up at the drawing-room windows, my lady, and Caley came to one of them with such a look on her face! I can’t exactly describe it to you, my lady, but——”
“Why do you tell me?” interrupted his mistress, with absolute composure, and hard, questioning eyes.
But she had drawn herself up in the saddle. Then, before he could reply, a flash of thought seemed to cross her face with a quick single motion of her eyebrows, and it was instantly altered and thoughtful. She seemed to have suddenly perceived some cause for taking a mild interest in his communication.
“But it cannot be, Malcolm,” she said, in quite a changed tone. “You must have taken some one else for her. She never left the studio all the time I was there.”
“It was immediately after her arrival, my lady. She went in about two minutes after your ladyship, and could not have had much more than time to go upstairs when I saw her come to the window. I felt bound to tell your ladyship.”
“Thank you, Malcolm,” returned Florimel kindly. “You did right to tell me,—but—it’s of no consequence. Mr Lenorme’s housekeeper and she must have been talking about something.”
But her eyebrows were now thoughtfully contracted over her eyes.
“There had been no time for that, I think, my lady,” said Malcolm.