“Why is it difficult?” Rhoda hesitated. Not for worlds would she have betrayed a suspicion of the real difficulties which beset her path, of the mystery of which she now had an inkling, and of which she feared to obtain further knowledge. How could she suggest to the marchioness that Jack Rotherfield was, if not actually the murderer of poor Langton, at least concerned actively in his death, and that Lady Sarah appeared to have been, if not an accomplice, at least an accessory after the fact? “How do Sir Robert and Mr. Rotherfield get on together?” asked Lady Eridge as if carelessly, though Rhoda knew well the thought that was in her mind. “Quite well. Sir Robert is very fond of him, and I have never seen him laugh or talk so much as he did last night at dinner when Mr. Rotherfield was there.” “Yes. He is a most amusing companion, I must admit. But I think he is too flippant and too extravagant to be a safe friend for a young married woman. You will perhaps be surprised, Miss Pembury, that I speak to you so openly. But you have been initiated into the family circumstances, and you must have noticed for yourself that there is not that sympathy between my daughter and her husband that there ought to be, and that she is too much inclined to spend her time in frivolous pleasures. She is too extravagant, and I think that Mr. Rotherfield encourages her in it. Certainly she seems to grow more and more wasteful in money matters.” “Wouldn’t she listen to you, if you were to speak to her on the subject? I certainly could not,” said Rhoda. Lady Eridge shrugged her shoulders. “Unfortunately it is impossible to influence her by preaching. That is why I am hoping so much from your example.” “You must not hope, Lady Eridge. If Lady Sarah were to have the least suspicion that I was to be held up to her as a pattern, my life would at once become unendurable. And I should be sorry to have to go, for Caryl’s sake.” Lady Eridge leaned back with a sigh. “I shall persist in hoping,” she said gently. “And in believing that you may be working for good without your own knowledge.” When Rhoda went away she was oppressed by a new sense of responsibility and uneasiness. New difficulties seemed to be cropping up at every step. The idea of her influencing the wilful, artful wife of Sir Robert was laughable, or would have been so if she had not felt that there was something pitiful in the anxiety of the mother to bring wholesome influences to bear upon her self-willed, extravagant daughter. Of course Rhoda knew that she could do nothing, unless indeed she could contrive to put in a word of warning to Sir Robert to tighten his hold a little on his erratic wife. But how was she to dare to intervene? She was walking more and more slowly, weighed down by her anxieties, when she heard rapid footsteps behind her, and then her name uttered in Jack Rotherfield’s voice: “Miss Pembury!”