Payson personally. At the third attempt, he wrote becomingly as well as briefly. "Sally has passed the night here, as my guest. She was suffering from severe fatigue; it would have been an act of downright inhumanity to send her away. I regret your decision, but of course I submit to it. You once said, you believed implicitly in the purity of my motives. Do me the justice, however you may blame my conduct, to believe in me still."
Having despatched these lines, the mind of Amelius was at ease again, He went into the library, and listened to hear if Sally was moving. The perfect silence on the other side of the door informed him that the weary girl was still fast asleep. He gave directions that she was on no account to be disturbed, and sat down to breakfast by himself.
While he was still at table, Toff appeared, with profound mystery in his manner, and discreet confidence in the tones of his voice. "Here's another one, sir!" the Frenchman announced, in his master's ear.
"Another one?" Amelius repeated. "What do you mean?"
"She is not like the sweet little sleeping Miss." Toff explained. "This time, sir, it's the beauty of the devil himself, as we say in France. She refuses to confide in me; and she appears to be agitated--both bad signs. Shall I get rid of her before the other Miss wakes?"
"Hasn't she got a name?" Amelius asked.
Toff answered, in his foreign accent, "One name only--Faybay."
"Do you mean Phoebe?"
"Have I not said it, sir?"
"Show her in directly."
Toff glanced at the door of Sally's room, shrugged his shoulders, and obeyed his instructions.
Phoebe appeared, looking pale and anxious. Her customary assurance of manner had completely deserted her: she stopped in the doorway, as if she was afraid to enter the room.
"Come in, and sit down," said Amelius. "What's the matter?"
"I'm troubled in my mind, sir," Phoebe answered. "I know it's taking a liberty to come to you. But I went yesterday to ask Miss Regina's advice, and found she had gone abroad with her uncle. I have something to say about Mrs. Farnaby, sir; and there's no time to be lost in saying it. I know of nobody but you that I can speak to, now Miss Regina is away. The footman told me where you lived."
She stopped, evidently in the greatest embarrassment. Amelius tried to encourage her. "If I can be of any use to Mrs. Farnaby," he said, "tell me at once what to do."
Phoebe's eyes dropped before his straightforward look as he spoke to her.
"I must ask you to please excuse my mentioning names, sir," she resumed confusedly. "There's a person I'm interested in, whom I wouldn't get into trouble for the whole world. He's been misled--I'm sure he's been misled by another person--a wicked drunken old woman, who ought to be in prison if she had her deserts. I'm not free from blame myself--I know I'm not. I listened, sir, to what I oughtn't to have heard; and I told it again (I'm sure in the strictest confidence, and not meaning anything wrong) to the person I've mentioned. Not the old women--I mean the person I'm interested in. I hope you understand me, sir? I wish to speak openly, excepting the names, on account of Mrs. Farnaby."
Amelius thought of Phoebe's vindictive language the last time he had seen her. He looked towards a cabinet in a corner of the room, in which he had placed Mrs. Farnaby's letter. An instinctive distrust of his visitor began to rise in his mind. His manner altered--he turned to his plate, and went on with his breakfast. "Can't you speak to me plainly?" he said. "Is Mrs. Farnaby in any trouble?"
"Yes, sir."
"And can I do anything to help her out of it?"
"I am sure you can, sir--if you only know where to find her."
"I do know where to find her. She has written to tell me. The last time I saw you, you expressed yourself very improperly about Mrs. Farnaby; you spoke as if you meant some harm to her."
"I mean nothing but good to her now, sir."
"Very well, then. Can't you go and speak to her yourself, if I give you the address?"
Phoebe's pale face flushed a little. "I couldn't do that, sir," she answered, "after the way Mrs. Farnaby has treated me. Besides, if she knew that I had listened to what passed between her and you--" She stopped again, more painfully embarrassed than ever.
Amelius laid down his knife and fork. "Look here!" he said; "this sort of thing is not in my way. If you can't make a clean breast of it, let's talk of something else. I'm very much afraid," he went on, with his customary absence of all concealment, "you're not the harmless sort of girl I once took you for. What do you mean by 'what passed between Mrs. Farnaby and me'?"
Phoebe put her handkerchief to her eyes. "It's very hard to speak to me so harshly," she said, "when I'm sorry for what I've done, and am only anxious to prevent harm coming of it."
"What have you done?" cried honest Amelius, weary of the woman's inveterately indirect way of explaining herself to him.
The flash of his quick temper in his eyes, as he put that straightforward question, roused a responsive temper in Phoebe which stung her into speaking openly at last. She told Amelius what she had heard in the kitchen as plainly as she had told it to Jervy--with this one difference, that she spoke without insolence when she referred to Mrs. Farnaby.
Listening in silence until she had done, Amelius started to his feet, and opening the cabinet, took from it Mrs. Farnaby's letter. He read the letter, keeping his back towards Phoebe--waited a moment thinking--and suddenly turned on the woman with a look that made her shrink in her chair. "You wretch!" he said; "you detestable wretch!"
In the terror of the moment, Phoebe attempted to leave the room. Amelius stopped her instantly. "Sit down again," he said; "I mean to have the whole truth out of you, now."
Phoebe recovered her courage. "You have had the whole truth, sir; I could tell you no more if I was on my deathbed."
Amelius refused to believe her. "There is a vile conspiracy against Mrs. Farnaby," he said. "Do you mean to tell me you are not in it?"
"So help me God, sir, I never even heard of it till yesterday!"
The tone in which she spoke shook the conviction of Amelius; the indescribable ring of truth was in it.
"There are two people who are cruelly deluding and plundering this poor lady," he went on. "Who are they?"
"I told you, if you remember, that I couldn't mention names, sir."
Amelius looked again at the letter. After what he had heard, there was no difficulty in identifying the invisible "young man," alluded to by Mrs. Farnaby, with the unnamed "person" in whom Phoebe was interested. Who was he? As the question passed through his mind, Amelius remembered the vagabond whom he had recognized with Phoebe, in the street. There was no doubt of it now--the man who was directing the conspiracy in the dark was Jervy! Amelius would unquestionably have been rash enough to reveal this discovery, if Phoebe had not stopped him. His renewed reference to Mrs. Farnaby's letter and his sudden silence after looking at it roused the woman's suspicions.