“He will be coming! Burn the paper!” cried Lady Carse impatiently, looking from the door.
“Better not. Indeed we had better not,” said Annie quietly. “They have no suspicion, or they would not have let us see the paper. They do not know that Mr Hope is your agent; and Mrs Ruthven’s name is not mentioned. If we do not return both the papers, there will be suspicion; and you will be carried to Saint Kilda. If we quietly return both papers, the danger may pass.”
“O! burn it, and say it was accident. How slow you are!”
“I cannot tell a lie,” said Annie. “And the steward would only get another copy of the paper, and look over it carefully,—No, we have only to give him back the papers, and thank him, without agitation.”
“I cannot do that,” exclaimed Lady Carse. “If you will not tell a lie in such a case, I shall act one. I shall go and pretend to be asleep. I could not contain myself to speak to that man, with my deliverers almost within hearing perhaps, and that detestable Saint Kilda within sight.”
She commanded herself so far as to appear asleep, when the steward looked in, on his return. Annie remarked on the news of the rebels, and saw him depart evidently unaware of the weighty nature of what he carried in his pocket.