Sand turns traitor, and betrays the footstep that has passed
over it; water gives back to the tell-tale surface the body that has
been drowned. Fire itself leaves the confession, in ashes, of the
substance consumed in it. Hate breaks its prison-secrecy in the
thoughts, through the doorway of the eyes; and Love finds the Judas
who betrays it by a kiss. Look where we will, the inevitable law of
revelation is one of the laws of nature: the lasting preservation of a
secret is a miracle which the world has never yet seen.
How was the secret now hidden in the household at Combe-Raven doomed
to disclose itself? Through what coming event in the daily lives of
the father, the mother, and the daughters, was the law of revelation
destined to break the fatal way to discovery? The way opened (unseen by
the parents, and unsuspected by the children) through the first event
that happened after Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone's return--an event which
presented, on the surface of it, no interest of greater importance than
the trivial social ceremony of a morning call.
Three days after the master and mistress of Combe-Raven had come back,
the female members of the family happened to be assembled together
in the morning-room.
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