She pressed her hand to her forehead. Then she quietly dictated an address and a message, which he wrote down without comment. "You should have the reply this evening," he said. Then, "Wait here one moment," he added, and he retraced his steps to Trixie. "You will do as I tell you, exactly," he said, "and without a word now or ever to _any one_? You hear me?" "I'll do it," she said, sulkily, "because it suits me to. All the same, I'd like to know what business it is of yours?" "It's this much my business, that if you break your promise I will tell your father all I know; and if you want proof that I _do_ know, well I have in my pocket a letter I got from Eva Lesley last night, enclosing--_another letter_. Eva wrote to me in preference to Rex, not wanting to worry him, and--well, for other reasons." Trixie had grown pale, but she stood her ground. "_I_ never touched anybody's letters," she said. "And how can you say any one did? People--accidents happen about letters sometimes." "Yes, they do; but there is such a thing as circumstantial evidence; and what is more, _I_, with my own hands, put the right note into the envelope addressed to Miss Wentworth that morning, as Rex was so hurried, and I laid it with the other one, stamped and directed to Miss Lesley, on the hall table." She grew paler and paler. "_I_ didn't touch them," she repeated. "We have only your own word for it," he said, scornfully; "and supposing Mabella Forsyth says you did? But I am wasting time upon you. I have warned you. Take your own way." "I won't tell anything about this morning. I swear I won't," she said, in terror. Five minutes later saw Imogen safe in her own room, thither escorted by Trixie, silent and panic-stricken. And an hour or so later, when Mrs Wentworth returned from a drive in the pony carriage, to which she had been invited by Florence, she was met by Colman with the news that Miss Imogen was in bed and asleep, her head was so bad. It was only to be hoped, added the maid, after the manner of her kind, that the young lady had not got a bad chill, and was not going to have a regular illness. Mrs Wentworth spent the rest of the afternoon in her own room, which opened into Imogen's, watching for her to awake. The anxiety almost absorbed all other feelings.