It May Be True, Vol. 1 (of 3)

Scornfully she stood and looked at both, while both quailed at her glance, and the proud, angry look in her eyes.

Charles was the first to recover himself. "Miss Neville has sprained her wrist badly, Frances. Come and see."

More scornfully still, she returned his gaze, and then saying, with cutting sarcasm, "Pray do not let me disturb you," she swept on, as though the ground was scarcely good enough for her to walk on, or that her pride would at all hazards o'er master any and every thing that came in her way.

So she passed out of their sight.

"It is too much," she repeated again, "and more than I can bear," but this time there was no rebellious sigh, nothing but pride and determination struggling in her heart.

She went into her own room, and locked the door, so that the loud click of the key, as she turned it in the lock, startled again those she had left in the gallery.

"My cousin is not blessed with a good temper," remarked Charles, "though what she has had to vex her I know not, and do not much care;" but at the same time, if Amy could have read his heart, she would have seen that he was inwardly uncomfortable at her having caught him.

"I am sorry," was all Amy said, but it expressed much, as taking the ribbon from his hand, and gently declining his proffered assistance of again binding it round the injured wrist, she left him.

And Amy was sorry. She could not think she had done wrong in allowing Charles Linchmore to look at the sprain, simply because she could not well have refused him without awkwardness; besides, he took her hand as a matter of course, and never asked her permission at all; but then might not Miss Strickland imagine thousands of other things, put a number of other constructions upon finding them in the embrasure of the window together alone.

It was very evident from her manner that she had done so, and Amy shrank within herself at the idea that perhaps she also would think she was leading him on, and endeavouring to gain his heart, and he, too, as Mrs. Hopkins had told her, the inheritor of the very house she lived in.

As a governess, perhaps she had done wrong, she ought not to have allowed him to evince so much sympathy; but what if she explained to Miss Strickland how it had all happened, there would then be an end to her suspicions; her woman's heart and feeling would at once see how little she had intended doing wrong, and feel for her and exonerate her from all blame or censure.

So Amy determined on seeking an interview with Frances. It was, as far as she could see, the right thing to do; and she went; when how Frances received her, and how far she helped her, must be seen in another chapter.