With a low cry, she put the dress back, and looked about the room in the vain hope that she might have dropped the keys somewhere while she was putting her dress away. But it was hoping against hope, and at last she had to give up her search, and stealing out of her room, feeling as guilty as if she herself had been the thief, she went slowly back along the corridor and down the stairs, to the study. “Come in,” cried Sir Robert in his kind voice. She could scarcely turn the handle of the door, and when she was inside the room, she could do nothing but utter whispered exclamations of distress. The baronet laughed at her in the most reassuring manner, and pushed her gently into a chair. “Don’t behave like that, you silly, silly girl!” said he in a robust and reassuring voice. “I see what it is: you haven’t found the keys. They’re gone. Is that it?” She bowed her head in assent. “I’m quite, quite sure I put them in my pocket this morning, and that I didn’t take them out again after I’d done my work in the gallery. Some one must have taken them out. Some one who knew where I kept them.” She sat up and stared at him almost fiercely. The words distressed him, she saw. “Do you think that perhaps they fell as you were either putting them in or taking them out again? Do you think it possible that you may have let them drop, and that they may have been picked up by one of the servants? I should hate to have to suspect any member of my household, but there are some who have not been here long, and one knows that some one must have taken the snuff-boxes.” “I should have heard them fall,” said Rhoda uncertainly. “Do you think there was a hole in your pocket?” “No. I don’t think so.” “Or that they may have slipped out on to the floor of your room?” “I’ve hunted everywhere,” said Rhoda. “Of course it is plain that the things have been stolen, and probably by means of your keys,” said he. “But I would rather think that the keys had been picked up and that the finder yielded to a sudden temptation than that a deliberate plot was hatched to rob me by hunting in your pockets while you were away. That would be abominable, odious, unpardonable.” Sir Robert grew quite warm as he thought of such an act of treachery. “I wonder if I did drop them,” said Rhoda doubtfully. “But I really don’t think it possible. I’m not so careless as all that,” she went on piteously. “When I look upon it as such a high honour to have the keys at all.” She threw at Sir Robert a look so plaintive, so full of apology and despair that he could not help smiling, as he told her not to worry her head about it, but to be sure that everything would come right. “If it is one of the young servants who has been tempted,” said he, “I will try to get at him or her through the housekeeper, or by some other means, and to persuade him or her into restitution. So dry your eyes and go and dress for dinner, and try to forget all about this little _contretemps_.”