In fact, the spiteful creature, propitiating her natural sense of justice by hinting instead of plainly suggesting injurious conclusions, was paying me back for my imagined participation in the impertinences of Clara. She had besides, as I learned afterwards, greatly resented the trouble I had caused of late.
Brotherton struck in as soon as his father had ceased questioning her.
‘At all events, if he believed the sword was his, why did he not go and represent the case to you, sir, and request justice from you? Since then he has had opportunity enough. His tale has taken too long to hatch.’
‘This is all very paltry,’ I said.
‘Not so paltry as your contriving to sleep in the house in order to carry off your host’s property in the morning—after studying the place to discover which room would suit your purpose best!’
Here I lost my presence of mind. A horror shook me lest something might come out to injure Mary, and I shivered at the thought of her name being once mentioned along with mine. If I had taken a moment to reflect, I must have seen that I should only add to the danger by what I was about to say. But her form was so inextricably associated in my mind with all that had happened then, that it seemed as if the slightest allusion to any event of that night would inevitably betray her; and in the tremor which, like an electric shock, passed through me from head to foot, I blurted out words importing that I had never slept in the house in my life.
‘Your room was got ready for you, anyhow, Master Cumbermede,’ said Mrs Wilson.
‘It does not follow that I occupied it,’ I returned.
‘I can prove that false,’ said Brotherton; but, probably lest he should be required to produce his witness, only added,—‘At all events, he was seen in the morning, carrying the sword across the court before any one had been admitted.’
I was silent; for I now saw too clearly that I had made a dreadful blunder, and that any attempt to carry assertion further, or even to explain away my words, might be to challenge the very discovery I would have given my life to ward off.