she put out her hand to me as a pledge. “I’ll go—I’ll go. I’ll go this morning.”
I wanted to be very just. “If you should wish still to wait, I would engage she shouldn’t see me.”
“No, no: it’s the place itself. She must leave it.” She held me a moment with heavy eyes, then brought out the rest. “Your idea’s the right one. I myself, Miss———”
“Well?”
“I can’t stay.”
The look she gave me with it made me jump at possibilities. “You mean that, since yesterday, you have seen———?”
She shook her head with dignity. “I’ve heard———!”
“Heard?”
“From that child—horrors! There!” she sighed with tragic relief. “On my honour, Miss, she says things———!” But at this evocation she broke down; she dropped, with a sudden sob, upon my sofa and, as I had seen her do before, gave way to all the grief of it.
It was quite in another manner that I, for my part, let myself go. “Oh, thank God!”
She sprang up again at this, drying her eyes with a groan. “‘Thank God’?”
