"I have no cousin," replied Mary.

"The person, I mean, you have been staying with?"

"Better, thank you."

"Almost a pity, is it not--if there should come trouble about this ring?"

"I do not understand you. The ring will, of course, be found," returned Mary.

"In any case the blame will come on you: it was in your charge."

"The ring was in the case when I left."

"You will have to prove that."

"I remember quite well."

"That no one will question."

Beginning at last to understand her insinuations, Mary was so angry that she dared not speak.

"But it will hardly go to clear you," Sepia went on. "Don't imagine I mean you have taken it; I am only warning you how the matter will look, that you may be prepared. Mr. Redmain is one to believe the worst things of the best people."

"I am obliged to you," said Mary, "but I am not anxious."

"It is necessary you should know also," continued Sepia, "that there is some suspicion attaching to a female friend of yours as well, a young woman who used to visit you--the wife of the other, it is supposed. She was here, I remember, one night there was a party; I saw you together in my cousin's bedroom. She had just dressed and gone down."

"I remember," said Mary. "It was Mrs. Helmer."

"Well?"

"It is very unfortunate, certainly; but the truth must be told: a few days before you left, one of the servants, hearing some one in the house in the middle of the night, got up and went down, but only in time to hear the front door open and shut. In the morning a hat was found in the drawing-room, with the name _Thomas Helmer_ in it: that is the name of your friend's husband, I believe?"

"I am aware Mr. Helmer was a frequent visitor," said Mary, trying to keep cool for what was to come.

This that Sepia told her was true enough, though she was not accurate as to the time of its occurrence. I will relate briefly how it came about.

Upon a certain evening, a few days before Mary's return from Cornwall, Tom would have gone to see Miss Yolland had he not known that she meant to go to the play with a Mr. Emmet, a cousin of the Redmains. Before the hour arrived, however, Count Galofta called, and Sepia went out with him, telling the man who opened the door to ask Mr. Emmet to wait.

The man was rather deaf, and did not catch with certainty the name she gave. Mr. Emmet did not appear, and it was late before Sepia returned.

Tom, jealous even to hatred, spent the greater part of his evening in a tavern on the borders of the city--in gloomy solitude, drinking brandy-and-water, and building castles of the most foolish type--for castles are as different as the men that build them. Through all the rooms of them glided the form of Sepia, his evil genius. He grew more and more excited as he built, and as he drank. He rose at last, paid his bill, and, a little suspicious of his equilibrium, stalked into the street. There, almost unconsciously, he turned and walked westward. It was getting late; before long the theatres would be emptying: he might have a peep of Sepia as she came out!--but where was the good when that fellow was with her! "But," thought Tom, growing more and more daring as in an adventurous dream, "why should I not go to the house, and see her after he has left her at the door?"

He went to the house and rang the bell. The man came, and said immediately that Miss Yolland was out, but had desired him to ask Mr.

Helmer to wait; whereupon Tom walked in, and up the stair to the drawing-room, thence into a second and a third drawing-room, and from the last into the conservatory. The man went down and finished his second, pint of ale. From the conservatory, Tom, finding himself in danger of havoc among the flower-pots, turned back into the third room, threw himself on a couch, and fell fast asleep.

He woke in the middle of the night in pitch darkness; and it was some time before he could remember where he was. When he did, he recognized that he was in an awkward predicament. But he knew the house well, and would make the attempt to get out undiscovered. It was foolish, but Tom was foolish. Feeling his way, he knocked down a small table with a great crash of china, and, losing his equanimity, rushed for the stair.

Happily the hall lamp was still alight, and he found no trouble with bolts or lock: the door was not any way secured.

The first breath of the cold night-air brought with it such a gush of joy as he had rarely experienced; and he trod the silent streets with something of the pleasure of an escaped criminal, until, alas! the wind, at the first turning, let him know that he had left his hat behind him! He felt as if he had committed a murder, and left his card-case with the body. A vague terror grew upon him as he hurried along. Justice seemed following on his track. He had found the door on the latch: if anything was missing, how should he explain the presence of his hat without his own? The devil of the brandy he had drunk was gone out of him, and only the gray ashes of its evil fire were left in his sick brain, but it had helped first to kindle another fire, which was now beginning to glow unsuspected--that of a fever whose fuel had been slowly gathering for some time.

He opened the door with his pa.s.s-key, and hurried up the stair, his long legs taking three steps at a time. Never before had he felt as if he were fleeing to a refuge when going home to his wife.

He opened the door of the sitting-room--and there on the floor lay Letty and little Tom, as I have already told.

"Why have I heard nothing of this before?" said Mary.

"I am not aware of any right you have to know what happens in this house."

"Not from you, of course, Miss Yolland--perhaps not from Mrs. Redmain; but the servants talk of most things, and I have not heard a word--"

"How could you," interrupted Sepia, "when you were not in the house?--And, so long as nothing was missed, the thing was of no consequence," she added. "Now it is different."

This confused Mary a little. She stopped to consider. One thing was clear--that, if the ring was not lost till after she left--and of so much she was sure--it could not be Tom that had taken it, for he was then ill in bed. Something to this effect she managed to say.

"I told you already," returned Sepia, "that I had no suspicion of him--at least, I desire to have none, but you may be required to prove all you say; and it is as well to let you understand--though there is no reason why _I_ should take the trouble--that your going to those very people at the time, and their proving to be friends of yours, adds to the difficulty."

"How?" asked Mary.

"I am not on the jury," replied Sepia, with indifference.

The scope of her remarks seemed to Mary intended to show that any suspicion of her would only be natural. For the moment the idea amused her. But Sepia's way of talking about Tom, whatever she meant by it, was disgraceful!

"I am astonished you should seem so indifferent," she said, "if the character of a gentleman with whom you have been so intimate is so seriously threatened as you would imply. I know he has been to see you more than once while Mr. and Mrs. Redmain were not yet returned."

Sepia's countenance changed; an evil fire glowed in her eyes, and she looked at Mary as if she would search her to the bone. The poorer the character, the more precious the repute!

"The foolish fellow," she returned, with a smile of contempt, "chose to fall in love with me!--A married man, too!"

"If you understood that, how did he come to be here so often?" asked Mary, looking her in the face.

But Sepia knew better than declare war a moment before it was unavoidable.

"Have I not just told you," she said, in a haughty tone, "that the man was in love with me?"

"And have you not just told me he was a married man? Could he have come to the house so often without at least your permission?"

Mary was actually taking the upper hand with her! Sepia felt it with scarcely repressive rage.

"He deserved the punishment," she replied, with calmness.

"You do not seem to have thought of his wife!"

"Certainly not. She never gave me offense."

"Is offense the only ground for casting a regard on a fellow-creature?"

"Why should I think of her?"