But before she got further in these suggestions of consolation, something in their nature suddenly struck her as strangely discrepant with the whole look and even attitude of the young girl before her. The disguising spectacles were discarded—the handkerchief with which Philippa was brushing away her tears was of the finest cambric, with a monogram beautifully worked in one corner—the whole pose of the figure, even in its abandonment of distress, was full of grace and refinement. It did not require Philippa’s shake of the head, accompanied involuntarily by a faint little smile, to bring home to the housekeeper that Michael Gresham had been right in the opinion he had expressed as to the social status of his fellow-traveller, and which, on first hearing it, had struck his old friend as scarcely warranted.
For Philippa was now completely herself, in the sense, that is to say, of having thrown off all attempt at appearing other than she really was, even while less self-controlled, more thoroughly unstrung than she had ever been before in her life.
Yet there was something almost queenly in her bearing, as at last, resolutely choking down the sobs which still would rise, she sat straight up in her chair and looked Mrs Shepton clearly in the face.
“I am going to tell you everything,” she began. “I know you will be kind, however startled and even shocked you may feel. Mrs Shepton, my real name is Philippa Raynsworth, I am Mrs Marmaduke Headfort’s sister.”
For a moment or two the housekeeper was too confused to take in distinctly the meaning of the words which reached her ears.
“Sister,” she repeated vaguely, while some romantic notion of “foster-sister,” “adopted sister,” or the like, floated through her brain. “You don’t mean really—”
“Yes, I do,” interrupted her visitor. “I am her actual, full sister. You know her name was Raynsworth before she married?”
Mrs Shepton nodded, waiting breathlessly for further revelations.
“I will tell you how it all came about,” the girl went on, “But first of all you must promise me to believe that it was no one’s doing but my own. My father and mother are as vexed with me as they can possibly be, and Evelyn—it has been very trying for her,” she was going to have added, but the words remained unsaid, as with a faint smile of amusement, which even in the midst of her distress she could not altogether suppress, she recalled the comfortable philosophy with which, once she had accepted it as a fait accompli, her sister had resigned herself to her new lady’s-maid. “It has been,” she went on, “I see now, a great risk to run for Mrs Marmaduke; if Mrs Headfort and her daughters suspected that we have been deceiving them, I do not know what harm might come of it.”
She glanced up tentatively at Mrs Shepton, but there was nothing reassuring in the housekeeper’s grave face.