ed and held her was the secret friendship
that must have existed between her father and Ellen--secret friendship
was the first form that the relationship assumed for her. She saw
Ellen, red of face with little eyes and a flat nose upon which flies
used to settle, a fat, short neck, the wheezings and the pantings, the
stumping walk, the great broad back. And she saw her father--first as
the tall, dirty man whom she used to know, with the shiny black
trousers, the untidy beard, the frowning eyes, the nails bitten to the
quick, the ragged shirt-cuffs--then as that veiled shape below the
clothes, the lift of the sheet above the toes, the loins, the stomach,
the beard neatly brushed, the closed yellow eyelids, the yellow
forehead, the rats with their gleaming eyes. In a kind of terror as
though she were being led against her will into some disgusting chamber
where the skulls were stale and the sights indecent, she saw the
friendship of those two--Ellen the cook and her father.

Young, inexperienced though she was, she was old already in a certain
crude knowledge of facts. It could not be said that she traced to their
ultimate hiding-place the relations of her father and the woman, but in
some relation, ugly, sordid, degraded, she saw those two figures
united. Many, many little things came to her mind as she sat there,
moments when the cook had breathlessly and in a sudden heat betrayed
some unexpected agitation, moments when her father had shown confusion,
moments when she had fancied whispers, laughter behind walls, scurrying
feet. She entwined desperately her hands together as pictures developed
behind her eyes.

Ah! but she was ashamed, most bitterly ashamed!

The rest of the interview came to her only dimly. She knew that Uncle
Mathew was still upon his feet protesting, that her aunt's face was
cold and wore a look of distressed surprise as though some one had
suddenly been rude to her.

From very, very far away came Mr. Brassy's voice: "I was aware that
this could not be agreeable, Miss Cardinal. But I am afraid that, under
the circumstances, there is nothing to be done. As to undue influence I
think that I should warn you, Mr. Cardinal, that there could be very
little hope ... and of course the expense ... if I may advise you ..."

The voice sank away again, the room faded, the air was still and
painted; like figures on a stage acting before an audience of one
Maggie saw those grotesque persons ...

She did not