olling its
volume. It shook in spite of her. She spoke true. She had indeed done.
She was at the end of her resources.

"I've been in houses," Louisa conqueringly sneered, "that I have! But I
never been in a house afore where one as ought to have been scullery-
girl went off with a boarder, and nothing said, and him the friend of
the master! And it isn't as if that was all!... Sheets, indeed!"

"I've nothing further to say," Sarah returned unnecessarily, and
descended the stair. "I shall simply report to Mr. Cannon. We shall
see."

"And what's this about _Mrs_. Cannon?" Louisa shouted, beside herself.

The peculiarity of her tone arrested Sarah Gailey. Hilda flushed. The
Watchetts were listening. The Watchetts had not yet been told of the
marriage. The announcement was to be made to them formally, a little
later. And now it was Louisa who was making the announcement, brutally,
coarsely. The outrage of the episode was a hundredfold intensified; it
grew into an inconceivable ghastly horror. Hilda's self-respect seemed
to have a physical body and Louisa to be hacking at it with a jagged
knife.

"Mr. Cannon has brought his wife home," said Sarah Gailey shortly, with
a dignity and courage that increased as her distance from the appalling,
the incredible Louisa. Hilda could see her pale face now. The eyebrows
and chin were lifted in scorn of the vile menial, but the poor head was
trembling.

"And what about his other wife?"

"Louisa!"--Sarah Gailey looked again up the stairs--"I know you're in a
temper and not responsible for what you say. But you'd better be
careful." She spoke with elaborate haughty negligence.

"Had I?" Louisa shrilled. "What I say is, what about his other wife?
What about the old woman he married in Devonshire? Why, God bless me,
Florrie was full of it--couldn't talk about anything else in bed of a
night! Didn't you know the old woman'd been inquiring for her beautiful
'usband down your way?" She laughed loudly. "Turnhill--what's-its-name?...
And all of you lying low, and then making out all of a sudden as he's
brought his wife home! A nice house! And I've been in a few, too!"

Hilda could feel her heart beating with terrific force against her
bodice, but she was conscious of no other sensation. She heard a loud
snort of shattering contempt from Louisa; and then a strange and
terrific silence fell on the stairs. There was no sound even of a
movement. The Watchetts did not stir; the cook did not