She made a last effort to plead with him. “Oh sir, is this behaving like the good kind man I thought you were? You say you are Miss Emily’s friend? Don’t press me—for Miss Emily’s sake!”
“Emily!” Alban exclaimed. “Is she concerned in this?”
There was a change to tenderness in his voice, which persuaded Mrs. Ellmother that she had found her way to the weak side of him. Her one effort now was to strengthen the impression which she believed herself to have produced. “Miss Emily is concerned in it,” she confessed.
“In what way?”
“Never mind in what way.”
“But I do mind.”
“I tell you, sir, Miss Emily must never know it to her dying day!”
The first suspicion of the truth crossed Alban’s mind.
“I understand you at last,” he said. “What Miss Emily must never know—is what Miss de Sor wanted you to tell her. Oh, it’s useless to contradict me! Her motive in trying to frighten you is as plain to me now as if she had confessed it. Are you sure you didn’t betray yourself, when she showed the image of wax?”
“I should have died first!” The reply had hardly escaped her before she regretted it. “What makes you want to be so sure about it?” she said. “It looks as if you knew—”