After another pause, during which the young man looked through the photographic album on the table, Arminell recovered herself, and said, “Do not suppose for a moment that I regret my decision. My conscience is relieved. I am beginning to acquire fresh interests. I am now making a frock for baby. I am godmother to Mrs. Welsh’s child, and have come to be very fond of him. But there—tell me something about Orleigh, and Giles, and my mother—about any person or animal, or shrub or tree there. And, oh! can you obtain for me some photographs of the place? I should cherish them above everything I have. I dream of Orleigh. I think of Orleigh, and—I shall never see dear Orleigh again.”
“I will come another day, Miss Inglett, and tell you all that I can, but to-day I must urge on you the vital necessity of at once leaving this house.”
“Your aunt can hardly get on without me.”
“She managed formerly without you, she must do the same again.”
“But there was no baby in the house then. And, besides, the new cook who was to have come has failed. The last went up a ladder sixty feet high, and it took several constables and a sergeant to get her down.”
“Miss Inglett, consider what the difficulty would be in which her ladyship would be placed should it become known—”
The door was thrown open by the maid of-all-work, and she ushered into the drawing-room the person of all others—except perhaps Mrs. Cribbage—whom it was desired to keep from the house, and she was followed by Thomasine Kite.
Verily, the flower-pot was not smothered. It was about to fizz and puff again.
The story is told of a mouse having been hidden under a dish-cover, and a married pair introduced into the dining-room and invited to partake of every dish except that which remained covered. When left to themselves, the woman, contrary to the advice of her husband, raised the cover, and out ran the mouse. Blue Beard forbade Fatima to open one door in his castle, and of course she tried the forbidden key. There was one tree in the midst of Paradise of which our first parents were not allowed to eat, and of course they nibbled at the fruit to discover how it tasted. All these stories point to the truth that nothing can be retained from human inquisitiveness. A secret resembles a mouse more than an apple or a dead wife of Blue Beard, for the mouse escapes when once uncovered and can no more be hidden, whereas the apple disappears when eaten, and the dead woman is locked up again. A secret when once out is all over the house, and is far too wary to be trapped again.