“I will leave you now and meet you again in half an hour, when I will give you back the likeness.”
In the course of the afternoon of next day Miss Blair knocked at the door of Rose Mount and asked to see Miss Ethel Thursby. She had experienced no difficulty in obtaining the latter’s name and address from the photographer who had taken the likeness. Hetty having been shown into the tiny drawing-room by Tamsin, was presently joined by Ethel, who could not help wondering as to the nature of the business which had caused her to be sought out by a perfect stranger.
Her visitor did not leave her long in doubt.
“My name is Hetty Blair,” she began, “my home is at Dulminster, and I earn my living as a daily governess. And now, Miss Thursby, will you please to pardon the question I am about to ask you, which is: Do you happen to be acquainted with a person of the name of Mr. Launce Keymer?”
On the instant a lovely flush suffused Ethel’s cheeks, which was not mitigated by the fact that Miss Blair was looking at her with parted lips and eagerly anxious eyes. She felt indignant with herself at having been surprised into a display of so much emotion and perhaps a little indignant with her questioner. She had not failed to notice that Miss Blair employed the word “person” in her mention of Keymer.
“The gentleman you speak of is my friend,” she replied with a touch of hauteur, “although I am at a loss to know in what way that fact concerns you, or why——”
“I have presumed to come here and question you about him. That you will learn presently. Mr. Launce Keymer being, as you say, your friend, did he ever take you so far into his confidence as to tell you that he had engaged himself by a solemn promise to marry someone else?”
The colour vanished from Ethel’s face, leaving it of a deathlike pallor. There was a little space of silence which to both the girls was fraught with pain. Then Ethel said faintly:
“No, Mr. Keymer never told me that.”
“I thought not,” answered Hetty, quietly. “Miss Thursby, I am the someone—I, humble Hetty Blair, nursery governess, whom Launce Keymer promised to make his wife.”