CHAPTER X. GUESSES AT THE TRUTH.
“What are we to do next? Oh, Mr. Morris, you must have seen all sorts of people in your time—you know human nature, and I don’t. Help me with a word of advice!”
Emily forgot that he was in love with her—forgot everything, but the effect produced by the locket on Mrs. Rook, and the vaguely alarming conclusion to which it pointed. In the fervor of her anxiety she took Alban’s arm as familiarly as if he had been her brother. He was gentle, he was considerate; he tried earnestly to compose her. “We can do nothing to any good purpose,” he said, “unless we begin by thinking quietly. Pardon me for saying so—you are needlessly exciting yourself.”
There was a reason for her excitement, of which he was necessarily ignorant. Her memory of the night interview with Miss Jethro had inevitably intensified the suspicion inspired by the conduct of Mrs. Rook. In less than twenty-four hours, Emily had seen two women shrinking from secret remembrances of her father—which might well be guilty remembrances—innocently excited by herself! How had they injured him? Of what infamy, on their parts, did his beloved and stainless memory remind them? Who could fathom the mystery of it? “What does it mean?” she cried, looking wildly in Alban’s compassionate face. “You must have formed some idea of your own. What does it mean?”
“Come, and sit down, Miss Emily. We will try if we can find out what it means, together.”
They returned to the shady solitude under the trees. Away, in front of the house, the distant grating of carriage wheels told of the arrival of Miss Ladd’s guests, and of the speedy beginning of the ceremonies of the day.
“We must help each other,” Alban resumed.
“When we first spoke of Mrs. Rook, you mentioned Miss Cecilia Wyvil as a person who knew something about her. Have you any objection to tell me what you may have heard in that way?”
In complying with his request Emily necessarily repeated what Cecilia had told Francine, when the two girls had met that morning in the garden.