This swept away any doubt Amy and Ruth might have had with regard to Sherry, and they went with Alex. to her room, where she was sitting with her head dropped as if asleep, but she roused up when they came in, her lips quivering with a pitiful smile as she said: “I didn’t know what I was doing. I have no remembrance of it. I never used to have when I woke. There was only a sick, dizzy, tired feeling, as if I had walked miles, or been terribly frightened. It is dreadful, and you saw me with them. They must be in the closet. Please look. I can’t.”
Amy and Ruth did the searching, while Alex. stood by Sherry, whose face was spotted when they brought out the brocade, which was hanging inside the closet where it could not be seen, if one merely opened the door as Sherry had done in the morning. The jewelry and Bible came next, and the three were placed upon the bed just as Mrs. Groves appeared in the doorway. She had been that morning to see a friend who was to leave that day and had just returned. Consequently she had not heard of Mr. Saltus’ arrival, or of the scene at the table, nor of all that followed, filling the entire staff in the kitchen with wonder. She had started directly for her room, and hearing voices as she passed Sherry’s door, looked in with a sinister expression on her face as she saw the articles on the bed and Sherry sitting white and limp in a chair, with Alex. standing over her as if to prevent her escape.
“So you’ve found ’em,” she said. “I thought you would. Were they in her trunk?”
Instantly the terrible truth flashed upon Sherry that this woman believed her a thief, and it roused all her strength and courage. Springing to her feet and confronting her foe, she began: “And do you dare insinuate that I took the things knowingly and meant to carry them off? It is a fitting end to all the little mean tyrannies you have heaped upon me ever since I came. I have tried my best to serve you well, and you reward me by intimating that I am a thief. Oh, I can’t bear it. Will no one stand between me and this dreadful woman?”
She was terribly excited, and her hands went up, beating the air frantically for a moment; then she stretched them toward Alex., as if asking for help, which he promptly gave. Taking her hands in his, he turned to Mrs. Groves and exclaimed: “Woman, leave this room at once, and never again be guilty of such an insinuation against Miss Sherman.” And Mrs. Groves left, so astonished and shocked that she fairly ran through the hall to her own room, where she sat down more shaken up than she had ever been in her life. Was the world turning topsy-turvy and she turning with it? And was Alex. Marsh crazy, and why should that girl dare to talk so to her, Mrs. Groves, matron of Maplehurst, whom all the servants held in awe, if not in fear? What did it mean? She heard what it meant when Amy came to her after the interview with Sherry was over.
“Well, I never!” Mrs. Groves exclaimed, when the story came to an end. “Been masquerading as somebody else, has she? Do you call that honest and aboveboard?”
Amy had undertaken Sherry’s championship, and she meant to carry it through.
“Certainly,” she replied. “She told you her name was Fanny Sherman, from Buford, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Groves admitted rather reluctantly, and Amy continued: “That was true, and if she wished to hire out as a waitress she had a right to do so. She has made a good one, and I am sorry for her. We are all sorry.”
Mrs. Groves dared not say to Amy all that was in her mind. She did not like Sherry, and she did not mean to like her if she belonged to a hundred good families and Craig Saltus had known her all her life. But she was quelled, and with her head high in the air excused herself, as she must see to some of her household affairs.