England -- Fiction; France -- Fiction; Governesses -- Fiction; Orphans -- Fiction
He moved away to his desk as he spoke, which stood on a side-table. It
was quite evident he did not wish to pursue the topic. What could I do
but let it drop? Taking up my work, I carried it to the window, while
he stood rummaging the desk, evidently searching for something. Every
individual thing was at length turned out of it and put back again.
"Well, it's very strange!"
"What is it, sir?" That sir! as he would say. But I felt too shy, in my
new and all-conscious feeling for him, to discard it entirely.
He had missed his note-book. One he was in the habit of using for any
purpose; as a sort of diary, and also to enter business matters. That
he had locked it up in his desk when he last wrote in it, two days ago,
he felt absolutely certain.
"Have you left your keys about, sir?"
"I don't know. I generally put them in my pocket. But if I did leave
them about, nobody would use them. Our servants are honest."
The book, however, could not be found. Mr. Chandos looked for it, I
looked, the servants looked. He said, in a joking sort of manner, that
some sleight-of-hand must have been at work; and sat down to write a
letter. I saw its address: London, Henry Amos, M.D.
While making tea for Mr. Chandos in the evening, a discussion arose
about the date of Emily's last letter, and I ran to my room to get it.
Just within the door I encountered Lizzy Dene, darting out with a haste
that nearly knocked me down.
"What did you want in my room, Lizzy?"
She murmured some incoherent answer about taking the housemaid's place
that evening. A lame excuse. All work connected with the chambers had
to be done by daylight; it was a rule of the house. I had had doubts,
vague and indefinable, of Lizzy Dene for some days—that the girl was
not altogether what she seemed. She looked red and confused now.
Emily's letter was not to be found. And yet I knew that I had tied it
up with two or three others and left the packet in a certain
compartment of my smaller trunk. Both boxes looked as though they had
been searched over, for the things were not as I placed them. But I
missed nothing, except the letters. Lizzy was in the gallery now,
peering out at the window close by I called to her to come in, and bade
her shut the door.
"Boxes opened! Letters gone!" she retorted, in a passionate tone—though
I had only mentioned the fact. "I have never laid a finger on anything
belonging to you, Miss. It's come to a pretty pass if I am to be
suspected of that."
"Will you tell me what you were doing in my room, Lizzy?"
"No I wont!" Doggedly.
"I insist upon knowing: or I shall call Mrs. Hill."
"Well then, I _will_ tell; I can't be hung for it," she returned, with
sudden resolution. "I came into your room, Miss, to look for something
in the grounds that I thought might come there."
"The ghost?" I said, incautiously.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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