Again Lady Sarah’s name would be introduced into the discussion, and the tottering fabric of the domestic happiness of both husband and wife would come down with a crash. Precarious as it was, Rhoda knew that the position was better left alone: her aim must be to consolidate such domestic peace as was possible in the household, not to involve the family in irretrievable ruin. Uncertain and miserable, she remained standing in the darkest part of the passage which led from the hall to the study, at one moment taking a step forward to the room where she knew Sir Robert to be, at another moving slowly in the opposite direction, with the idea of carrying the picture up to her own room until she should have prepared the way for its restoration. What if she were to leave it at the study door, for Sir Robert to find when he should come out? But she shrank from the thought of this. For might it not involve her in difficulties of her own? Might it not result, if she were to restore it thus in an underhand way and without a word of explanation, that she herself would be suspected to have had a hand, not only in the restoration of the picture, but in the theft of it? She shuddered at the thought. Not for the world would she have risked the loss of the baronet’s good opinion. She must find some better way than that of giving back the treasure. She had not yet made up her mind, when she heard a light rustling on the stairs above her, saw the flutter of a lacy petticoat, caught a glimpse of a jewelled hand. Then, before she could move from where she stood, Rhoda found herself a prisoner. Lady Sarah was beside her, blocking the way to retreat. “What’s that?” asked she in a low voice, touching the parcel which the girl carried in her arms. But Rhoda, in the half-darkness, only looked reproachfully into her face, without uttering a word. She was sure that Lady Sarah knew as well as she did what she was holding, and that she knew, too, what had happened. Indeed there was just enough of a certain acerbity underneath the lady’s assumed frivolity of manner as she touched the roll, for Rhoda to be certain that Jack, before going, had told her everything. Receiving no verbal answer, Lady Sarah looked up closely into the face of the other. Then she nestled up to her in the most caressing manner. “You are ill,” she said. “What is the matter? Come with me, come into my room and let me look at you. Yes, yes, I insist.” Rhoda would have resisted, protested, would have made her escape. But there was no getting away from the self-willed mistress of the house when she had made up her mind. Lady Sarah had made no further inquiries about the parcel which Rhoda was holding tightly in her arms, and this reticence was suggestive. “I’m not ill indeed. I’m going to my room,” said Rhoda. “No, no, you’ll come to my boudoir first.”