ies, and the two making believe to have been talking of the weather.
It's always so. And I want to know what secret they have got hold of, and
whether I'm poison, that I can't be trusted with it."

Jabez Gum slowly turned his eyes on the two in question. His wife lifted
her hands in deprecation at the idea that she should have a secret:
Mirrable was laughing.

"Nancy's secret to-night, when you interrupted us, was telling me of a
dream she had regarding Lord Hartledon, and of how she mistook Mr. Elster
for him the morning he came down," cried the latter. "And if you have
really been listening at the shutters since you went out, Mrs. Jones, you
should by this time know how to pickle walnuts in the new way: for I
declare that is all our conversation has been about since. You always
were suspicious, you know, and you always will be."

"Look here, Mrs. Jones," said the clerk, decisively; "I don't choose to
have my shutters listened at: it might give the house a bad name, for
quarrelling, or something of that sort. So I'll trouble you not to repeat
what you have done to-night, or I shall forbid your coming here. A
secret, indeed!"

"Yes, a secret!" persisted Mrs. Jones. "And if I don't come at what it is
one of these days, my name's not Lydia Jones. And I'll tell you why. It
strikes me--I may be wrong--but it strikes me it concerns me and my
husband and my household, which some folks are ever ready to interfere
with. I'll take myself off now; and I would recommend you, as a parting
warning, to denounce Pike to the police for an attempt at housebreaking,
before you're both murdered in your bed. That'll be the end on't."

She went away, and Clerk Gum wished he could denounce _her_ to the
police. Mirrable laughed again; and Mrs. Gum, cowardly and timid, fell
back in her chair as one seized with ague.

Beyond giving an occasional dole to Mrs. Jones for her children--and
to tell the truth, she clothed them all, or they would have gone in
rags--Mirrable had shaken her cousin off long ago: which of course did
not tend to soothe the naturally jealous spirit of Mrs. Jones. At
Hartledon House she was not welcomed, and could not go there; but she
watched for the visits of Mirrable at the clerk's, and was certain to
intrude on those occasions.

"I'll find it out!" she repeated to herself, as she went storming through
the garden-gate; "I'll find it out. And as to that poacher, he'd better
bring his black face near mine again!"