“I should like to tell you,” she began, with a strong emphasis on the last word.
There she stopped. She turned pale; then suddenly flushed again to the deepest red. She took up the knife once more, and went on cleaning it as industriously as ever.
“I mustn’t tell you,” she resumed, with her head down over the knife. “I have promised not to tell anybody. That’s the truth. Forget all about it, sir, as soon as you can. Hush! here’s the spy who saw us last night on the walk and who told Silas!”
Dreary Miss Meadowcroft opened the kitchen door. She carried an ostentatiously large Prayer-Book; and she looked at Naomi as only a jealous woman of middle age can look at a younger and prettier woman than herself.
“Prayers, Miss Colebrook,” she said in her sourest manner. She paused, and noticed me standing under the window. “Prayers, Mr. Lefrank,” she added, with a look of devout pity, directed exclusively to my address.
“We will follow you directly, Miss Meadowcroft,” said Naomi.
“I have no desire to intrude on your secrets, Miss Colebrook.”
With that acrid answer, our priestess took herself and her Prayer-Book out of the kitchen. I joined Naomi, entering the room by the garden door. She met me eagerly. “I am not quite easy about something,” she said. “Did you tell me that you left Ambrose and Silas together?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose Silas tells Ambrose of what happened this morning?”