Altogether, Sophie, thanks to her own bad play, had fallen to a discount.
When Miss Deveen announced to the world that she had found her emerald studs (lost through an accident, she discovered, and recovered in the same way) people were full of wonder at the chances and mistakes of life. Lettice Lane was cleared triumphantly. Miss Deveen sent her home for a week to shake hands with her friends and enemies, and then took her back as her own maid.
And the only person I said a syllable to was Anna. I knew it would be safe: and I dare say you would have done the same in my place. But she stopped me at the middle of the first sentence.
“I have known it from the first, Johnny: I was nearly as sure of it as I could be; and it is that that has made me so miserable.”
“Known it was Sophie Chalk?”
“As good as known it. I had no proof, only suspicion. And I could not see whether I ought to speak the suspicion even to mamma, or to keep it to myself. As things have turned out, I am very thankful to have been silent.”
“How was it, then?”
“That night at Whitney Hall, after they had all come down from dressing, mamma sent me up to William’s room with a message. As I was leaving it—it is at the end of the long corridor, you know—I saw some one peep cautiously out of Miss Cattledon’s chamber, and then steal up the back stairs. It was Sophie Chalk. Later, when we were going to bed, and I was quite undressed, Helen, who was in bed, espied Sophie’s comb and brush on the table—for she had dressed in our room because of the large glass—and told me to run in with them: she only slept in the next room. It was very cold. I knocked and entered so sharply that the door-bolt, a thin, creaky old thing, gave way. Of course I begged her pardon; but she seemed to start up in terrible fear, as if I had been a ghost. She had not touched her hair, but sat in her shawl, sewing at her stays; and she let them drop on the carpet and threw a petticoat over them. I thought nothing, Johnny; nothing at all. But the next morning when commotion arose and the studs were missing, I could not help recalling all this; and I quite hated myself for thinking Sophie Chalk might have taken them when she stole out of Miss Cattledon’s room, and was sewing them later into her stays.”
“You thought right, you see.”
“Johnny, I am very sorry for her. I wish we could help her to some good situation. Depend upon it, this will be a lesson to her: she will never so far forget herself again.”