She led the girl up the stairs, and they entered the beautiful room with its silk panels and white enamel, and here Lady Sarah made Rhoda sit by the fire, and, taking a chair close to her, asked again, “Now, what is it? Tell me all about it. What’s that you’re carrying?” Rhoda turned towards her with sudden fierceness. “You know very well what it is,” she said. For a moment the spoilt beauty was taken aback. The colour faded out of her lips and cheeks as she sat back in silence. Rhoda looked at her steadily: “You know what this parcel is, and you know how I got it,” she went on. Lady Sarah recovered herself. “Really I don’t understand you,” she said coldly. “I haven’t the least idea what it is you are carrying.” “Yes, you have, you know it’s the picture, the Romney, which was stolen from the gallery. And more than that, you know who it was that stole it,” cried Rhoda defiantly. Lady Sarah drew a long breath. She was frightened, in spite of her _aplomb_, and for the moment she did not know how to meet this direct attack. Rhoda burst into tears. “Oh, Lady Sarah, what is the use of pretending? You know all about it, and as I know it too, what is the use of acting? It’s a dreadful thing, a terrible thing, and it’s very hard that I should be dragged into it, that I should have had to be obliged to do what I did to get it back. No, don’t look as if you didn’t know all about that too. Mr. Rotherfield told you, I’m sure, before he went away.” Lady Sarah was leaning on her hand. She was now deadly white, and her eyes seemed to have become twice their natural size. With laboured breathing she gasped out: “What are you going to do? I don’t admit anything. I don’t know anything. But just tell me what you have in your mind.” “I must give the picture back to Sir Robert. And--I must tell him how I got it. There is no help for it, is there?” Lady Sarah sprang off her chair and walked rapidly up and down the room, her draperies flying about her, her hair disordered, her face haggard with strong emotion. Then, quite unexpectedly, she paused in her walk, and then threw herself on her knees in front of Rhoda. Clasping her hands together, she placed them on the knees of the other woman, and looked up earnestly into her face. “Do you know what will happen, if you do that?” she asked abruptly. Rhoda hesitated. “You’ve got to know what you’re doing,” went on Lady Sarah. “Mind, I know nothing about this picture affair. I’ve heard nothing but what you’ve told me. But I gather that what you’re carrying in that roll is the picture which was stolen out of the gallery last night.” “You know it is.” “I know nothing. But let us say that it is the picture. What are you going to tell Sir Robert?” Rhoda hesitated again. Lady Sarah went on passionately: “Are you going to make up some story of its having been restored to you?”