If she had looked him straight in the face; if she had turned to him frankly and trustingly—he would certainly have cast old Donald’s dark suspicions to the winds.
But she did not do this. There was a tendency in her eyes to avoid him. Even while addressing him, she did not look directly at him, and if, by chance, she caught his gaze fixed upon her—if her eyes met his own—she started guiltily.
“I suppose you’ve been at the castle?” she said after she had set the rolls and the teapot on the table; and there was a perceptible touch of bitterness in her voice.
“I have been at the castle during the day, twice,” Percy replied, honestly.
“Do you hear anything new up there?”
“Nothing at all. Lord Oakleigh has gone back to Oxford.”
He might have said more, but at that moment Margery turned quickly toward the buffet in a far corner, as though for something she had forgotten.
As his mother turned thus abruptly away, our hero’s gaze wandered to the table, and something attracted his attention which he had not before seen.
He saw it now, however, and the sight gave him a start that sent a throb and a chill through his whole frame.