But, after all, the secret was not so intensely valuable. What she knew was simply this. She had observed Cara Burt opening a letter on a certain morning and taking an unexpected five-pound note out of it. Mademoiselle was avaricious. The sight of the money had awakened desires within her. What could a girl like Cara want with anything so precious as a five-pound note in term time? She resolved to question her.
“How good your people are to you!” she said.
Cara had asked the governess what she meant, and the governess had prettily replied in her broken English that she had seen the “note so valuable” in Cara’s hand when she opened the letter.
“Oh, that is for a purpose—an important one,” answered Cara. Then she bit her lips, for she was sorry she had said so much. But other girls had received their money on the very same day and Mademoiselle, alert and auspicious, had crept to the rendezvous where they all met. Poor Penelope! When Penelope received the five-pound Bank of England notes, Mademoiselle’s dark, wicked face was peering from behind the shade of a magnificent oak tree. The girls themselves did not perceive her. She was much elated with her discovery and resolved to enfold it, as she said, within her breast for future use.
Now, it occurred to her that she might simply relate to Penelope what she had done, or rather tell her pupil enough to show her that she was in the secret. That very evening, when the two had finished their supper she began her confidence. She told the girl that she had not wished to injure her, but at the same time that she knew for a fact that she had received four five-pound notes from four different girls of the school.
“To me it is extraordinary,” she said, “why they should give to you the precious money, but that they have done so is beyond doubt. I go by the evidence of these eyes at once piercing and true! Do you deny it, mon enfant? Do you dare to be so méchante?”
“I admit nothing and deny nothing,” said Penelope, as calmly as she could speak.
Mademoiselle laughed. After a long pause, she said:
“I am a nature the most generous, and I would not hurt a hair of the head of my pupil. You will go and enjoy the festival and the time so gay and the friends so kind at Castle Beverley, and that enfant so magnifique, Honora Beverley, will be your companion. I could prevent it, for she is, with all her nobleness, fanatical in her views, and of principles the most severe.”
“I will never ask you to keep anything back,” said Penelope. “You can write to Honora if you wish: I don’t know how you can say anything about me without maligning yourself.”