"Oh, well, I suppose you will not understand. Sir Karl ought to be ashamed of himself."
Whether it was her tart tone that suddenly enlightened Mr. Smith, or whether he had but been pretending before, there could be no mistake that he caught her meaning now. He put on his green spectacles with a conscious laugh.
"Hush," said he, making believe playfully to hide his face. "We are content, you know, Miss Blake, to ignore these things."
"Yes, I do know it, dear sir: it is the way of the world. But they cannot be ignored in the sight of Heaven."
The striking of nine o'clock inside the house reminded Miss Blake that the morning was getting on, and that she had best make haste if she wanted any breakfast. Mr. Smith held the gate open for her, and shook her offered hand. She stepped onwards, feeling that a mutual, if silent, understanding had been established between them--that they shared the disgraceful secret.
Had Miss Blake wanted confirmation in her belief, this admission of Mr. Smith's would have established it. But she did not. She was as sure of the fact as though an angel had revealed it to her. The sight of her own good eyes, the hearing of her true ears, and the exercise of her keen common sense had established it too surely.
"My task lies all plain before me," she murmured. "It is a disagreeable one, and may prove a thankless one, but I will not shrink from it. Who am I that I should turn aside from an appointed duty? That it has been appointed me, events show. I have been guided in this by a higher power than my own."
An appointed duty! Perhaps Miss Blake thought she had been "appointed" to watch the Maze gates in the shade of the dark night, to track the private steps of her unsuspicious host, Karl Andinnian! There is no sophistry in this world like self-sophistry; nothing else so deceives the human heart: more especially when it is hidden under a guise of piety.
Miss Blake found her opportunity in the course of the morning. A shade of pity crossed her for the happiness she was about to mar, as she saw the husband and wife out together after breakfast, amid the flowers. Now Lucy's arm entwined fondly in his, now tripping by his side, now calling his attention to some rare or sweet blossom, as Mr. Smith had called Miss Blake's in the morning, went they. In Lucy's bright face, as she glanced perpetually at her lord and husband, there was so much of love, so much of trust: and in his, Sir Karl's, there was a whole depth of apparent tenderness for her.
"Men were deceivers ever," angrily cried Miss Blake, recalling a line of the old ballad. "It's enough to make one sick. But I am sorry for Lucy; it will be a dreadful blow. How I wish it could be inflicted on him instead of her! In a measure it will fall on him--for of course Lucy will take active steps."