“Oh, that I won’t tell,” said Miss Danvers, slyly—”that is a secret; but, if you choose to guess, I will tell you when you are wrong. So far I will go; but I won’t allow of any questions about tall and short, and fat and thin, and that sort of thing.”
Here all laughed; and Selina, quite satisfied that it was at her wit, glanced round the table with an eye of triumph, till, encountering Fitzhenry’s grave, preoccupied countenance, which, plainly showed that he had not joined in the applause, she said: “Ah, Lord Fitzhenry is still thinking of his brooch, and of that blush of Lady Fitzhenry’s, which seems to stick in his throat.”
“I am sure you are very good to take so much interest in what concerns us,” replied Fitzhenry, dryly.
“Oh no, it is not good at all; for it is my greatest amusement to find out every body’s little secrets, and I am determined I will get at the bottom of this somehow.” After a pause, she addressed Emmeline. “By the bye, now I recollect, you were very busy poking about all Lord Fitzhenry’s things in his room, yesterday morning; but what that may have to do with all this, I can’t just now make out.”
Fitzhenry looked up astonished, and his eyes were fixed on Emmeline’s crimson cheek; but, though he looked at her attentively for a few minutes, he said nothing; and, by this time, the frowns from Mrs. Danvers had become so repeated, and so decided, that they at last succeeded in checking the exuberant loquacity of the lively Selina.
An awkward silence ensued; every one seemed disconcerted, and Fitzhenry, for the first time, to Emmeline’s observation, appeared totally out of humour. He soon got up from the breakfast-table, and left the room.
It was a thoroughly wet day; even the gentlemen could not go out—and, to pass the morning, Lady Saville proposed practising some songs, in which one of them took a part. Poor Emmeline, who could not rally her spirits at all, felt little inclined to sing—but she complied, till at length, fatigued and harassed, she gave up her place at the pianoforte to Selina, and went to her own room. There on the table she found a note addressed to her, in Fitzhenry’s handwriting. She trembled as she opened it—it contained her own brooch, and these words:—
“I return you, what I suppose to be yours; how it came into my possession, I know not. I have kept to my promise—I do all in my power to promote your happiness—do then the same by me, and respect feelings which I have honestly confessed to you.
“Fitzhenry.”
Emmeline read this over and over, scarcely knowing what the latter words could refer to; so perfectly innocent did she feel of any infringement of their agreement, and so satisfied that she had never, directly or indirectly, to him or others, hinted at her cruel situation. However, at last, calling to mind the way in which Selina had that morning so provokingly entertained the company with her silly remarks, she felt convinced, in spite of Fitzhenry’s well-known contempt for the person who made them, that they had raised suspicions in his mind of her having taken advantage of his absence to invade his apartment, and pry into his secrets; perhaps had even led him to imagine that she had stolen his favourite brooch with the foolish intention of wantonly tormenting him.