Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/37

 the guilt upon Edward is unknown. But from the very first it was for his benefit that she spoke.

"Somebody," she said, "is going to be very sorry—very sorry that this ever happened and that my orders were disobeyed. Somebody is going to suffer for this."

And now she fixed her eyes on Edward's and held him thus for a long time. The little boy broke under the strain. Crimson crept up from his neck and spread over his face and into the roots of his hair. His eyes turned slowly away from his mother's face. They resembled two gentle and timid animals which had been wounded.

"I didn't do it, Dear Mother," he said, "truly I didn't."

"I had rather," she said, "that a thousand Dresden china urns were broken than that my little son should speak a single word that was not true."

"Really and truly I didn't," said Edward.

His dear mother lifted a finger not to her lips but to her shelf of projecting teeth, and said:

"Stay where you are, and do not speak to anybody."

Then she sailed majestically out of the room.

Convinced of Edward's guilt, the questions which Mrs. Eaton asked the domestics were perfunctory and leading. They were of this nature: "You didn't by any chance break one of my