“Is it?” she lifted her head for a moment as she said this, and looked into Mr. Croft’s face, then her glance wandered towards the locket. He could not quite comprehend her.
“A mere trifle,” he repeated; and then he told her all. He thought it best to do this—better that she should understand the whole of the circumstances clearly, so as to be able to comprehend exactly how he intended setting the affair straight.
“And I had that money of yours in the house all the time,” Heather said, with that weary, weary look in her face which seemed to Mr. Croft worse than the most violent sorrow—“what you gave me, you know, to keep—for—Bessie!”
The last word was spoken more like an exclamation than as though it had belonged in any way to the previous part of the sentence; and Mr. Croft, following the direction of her eyes, beheld the door closed hurriedly, and heard the rustle of a dress in the passage.
In a moment he was out in the hall, and had caught the retreating figure.
“Bessie!” he cried; “Bessie—Bessie! don’t go! I will leave, if you object to my staying here, but we can both help Mrs. Dudley. See, I will not follow you in!”
She covered her face with the corner of her shawl, covered it that he might not even look upon her, and passed back into the parlour without a word. “Heather, my darling, what is this?” she asked. “Morrison came round for me, but could only give the most confused account of what had happened. Tell me, love—tell me all; don’t sit looking at me like that, but speak, dear; what is it?” And she crouched down on the ground, and, winding her arms round Heather’s neck, drew the dear face close to her own. “What is this trouble, sweet?” she persisted; but the only answer Heather could make was—“Oh! Bessie—oh! Bessie,” as she held the locket towards her, moaning, moaning all the while.
“Do you wish me to open it?” Bessie inquired; and Heather made a gesture of assent. She had always been a little jealous, and now she was afraid to reveal, with her own hands, the secret it contained. And yet she longed to know—was it portrait or hair—was it an old love token, or a more recent souvenir which her husband had worn next his heart, next where she ought to have been alone? God keep us all from hard and hasty and suspicious judgments. With the man upstairs hovering between life and death, Heather still could not help misjudging him. Worse than the whole of the long ordeal she had passed through was the sight of that golden trifle, which she dared not examine, which Bessie first turned over and then opened, holding it up to the light as she did so.
There was a scrap of hair in it—a tiny curl of golden red, and “Lally” engraved in black letters round the edge.
“Where did you get this, Heather?” she inquired.