"Where have you been hiding yourself?" asked Mr. St. John, when she appeared in obedience to his orders. "I never see you by any chance."
Honour explained now. She looked just the same as ever, and she still wore mourning for her beloved Benja.
"Honour, I want to ask you a question. And you must answer it, for it is essential that you should do so. But you may rely upon my discretion, and no trouble shall accrue to you from it. You once spoke a word or two which led me to infer that your late mistress, Mrs. Carleton St. John, was not altogether of sound mind. Did you mean what you said?"
Honour paused. Not from fear of speaking, but in doubt what to say. Mr. St. John, attributing it to the former motive, again assured her that she might trust him.
"It is not that, sir; it is that I don't well know how to answer you. I remember what I said--you were asking me about that dreadful night, saying that from the manner in which he had been burnt to death it looked as though somebody had done it for the purpose; and I answered, in the moment's haste, that nobody could have done that, unless it was Mrs. St. John in her madness."
"But did you mean anything, Honour? That is the point to be considered now."
"I did, and I didn't, sir. I had seen my mistress two or three times in a most awful passion; a passion, sir, that you would hardly believe possible in a lady, and I meant that if she had done it, it must have been in one of those mad fits of passion. But I did not really mean that she had done it," resumed Honour, "and I could have bitten my tongue out afterwards for answering so carelessly; it was the very thing Mrs. Darling warned me against. There was no reason for supposing the calamity to have been anything but pure accident."
"What had Mrs. Darling warned you against?"
"It occurred in this way, sir. After it was all over and the poor lamb buried, I had brain fever; and they tell me I made all sorts of wild accusations in it, amidst others that my mistress had set fire to Benja and bolted the door upon him. After I got well, Mrs. Darling told me of this. Nothing could be kinder than what she said, but she warned me never to breathe such words again. I should not have had such a thought, even in my delirium, but for the bolted doors; I couldn't get over that at the time; but I came to the same conclusion at last as other people--that poor Benja must have fastened the one to keep me out, and that the other was not bolted at all. It's likely enough, for I never was in such a flurry before, smelling the burning so strong."
"And in your delirium you accused your mistress of having caused the mischief?"