“I am sorry to say that I have.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you will pardon me for a moment I will explain.”
Miss Henderson left the room.
While she was absent Lady Frances felt a cold dew breaking out on her forehead.
“This is beyond everything,” she thought. “But it is impossible; the child could never have done it. What motive would she have? She is not as bad as that; and it was her very first day at school.”
Miss Henderson re-entered the room, accompanied by Miss Thompson. In Miss Thompson’s hand was a copy of the History of England that Evelyn had been using.
“Will you kindly open that book,” said Miss Henderson, “and show Lady Frances what you have found there?”
Miss Thompson did so. She opened the History at the reign of Edward I. Between the leaves were to be seen two fragments of torn paper. Miss Thompson removed them carefully and laid them upon Lady Frances’s hand. Lady Frances glanced at them, and saw that they were beyond doubt torn from a copy of Ruskin’s Sesame and Lilies. She let them drop back again on to the open page of the book.
“I accuse no one,” said Miss Henderson. “Even now I accuse no one; but I grieve to tell you, Lady Frances, that this book was in the hands of your niece, Evelyn Wynford, on that afternoon.—Miss Thompson, will you relate the entire circumstances to Lady Frances?”