‘I understand,’ said the Rector, with a countenance somewhat troubled. And he went into the little drawing-room, where Lady William rose up to meet him looking a little anxious. ‘You, James!’ she said. ‘I did not expect, especially at this hour, to see you.’
‘I can’t see why you should not have expected me, Emily; our last interview was serious enough,’ he said, shutting the door carefully behind him: and then he went across the room to the window, which was open. Being so nearly on a level with the garden it would, of course, have been easy enough for any one to hear from outside whatever conversation was going on within.
‘You frighten me with these precautions, James.’
‘There is nothing to be frightened about. You may imagine I have been thinking a great deal of what you told me the other day.’
‘Yes: and I heard Mab tell you the new incident.’
‘The appearance of the cousin? What is the signification of that, I wonder? But let us take the other, which is more important, first. Did you know my father kept a diary, Emily?’
‘I have seen him making little notes in various little books: but it is so long ago.’
‘And you were not here, of course, when we came into the Rectory. I found a quantity of these little books in the study, little calendars and almanacs, and so forth. I didn’t pay much attention to them—that is, I looked into one or two and they didn’t seem interesting. Queer, when people might really make such a record important, and they put in the merest trifles instead.’
‘“Chronicle small beer,”’ she said, with a faint smile; but she was pale with an interest much deeper than any record of public events could have commanded.
‘Eh?’ said the Rector, who was not literary; ‘but I thought it might be just possible—so I have been making a hunt through them, and I came upon something that might—that must help us.’