About the same time as Elsie was passing the iced cake to Rory, his relatives and their friends were sitting down to tea at Broonah. The last-comer was Mrs. Borrn, who had been speaking to Lydia in the kitchen. Whilst passing through the hall she picked up a folded sheet of paper that someone had dropped, and carelessly opened it under the hanging lamp.
When she glanced over the lines she almost shrieked. She reeled against the wall, gasping incoherent words of astonishment and breathing hard. With her hand to her side, she read it and re-read it a dozen times, one moment feeling strangely elated, and the next blanching with a fear she could scarcely define. She pondered what to do, her brain in a whirl. It was a matter first for private discussion, for private investigation; but if she said nothing now the opportunity would be lost discovering in whose possession it had been. She thought of calling her husband out and conferring with him; then suspicion rested on Rhea as the likeliest person to have had it, and in a spasm of anger she rushed into the room.
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