o the effect that it was a lady whom I had seen
before, in a few words, to my conductress; and had scarcely done so,
when we heard her voice in the room, though not, from where we stood,
what she was saying. Martha, with an astonished look, repeated her
former action, and softly led me up the stairs; and then, by a little
back-door which seemed to have no lock, and which she pushed open with a
touch, into a small empty garret with a low sloping roof, little better
than a cupboard. Between this, and the room she had called hers,
there was a small door of communication, standing partly open. Here we
stopped, breathless with our ascent, and she placed her hand lightly on
my lips. I could only see, of the room beyond, that it was pretty large;
that there was a bed in it; and that there were some common pictures of
ships upon the walls. I could not see Miss Dartle, or the person whom
we had heard her address. Certainly, my companion could not, for my
position was the best. A dead silence prevailed for some moments. Martha
kept one hand on my lips, and raised the other in a listening attitude.

'It matters little to me her not being at home,' said Rosa Dartle
haughtily, 'I know nothing of her. It is you I come to see.'

'Me?' replied a soft voice.

At the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. For it was Emily's!

'Yes,' returned Miss Dartle, 'I have come to look at you. What? You are
not ashamed of the face that has done so much?'

The resolute and unrelenting hatred of her tone, its cold stern
sharpness, and its mastered rage, presented her before me, as if I had
seen her standing in the light. I saw the flashing black eyes, and the
passion-wasted figure; and I saw the scar, with its white track cutting
through her lips, quivering and throbbing as she spoke.

'I have come to see,' she said, 'James Steerforth's fancy; the girl who
ran away with him, and is the town-talk of the commonest people of her
native place; the bold, flaunting, practised companion of persons like
James Steerforth. I want to know what such a thing is like.'

There was a rustle, as if the unhappy girl, on whom she heaped these
taunts, ran towards the door, and the speaker swiftly interposed herself
before it. It was succeeded by a moment's pause.

When Miss Dartle spoke again, it was through her set teeth, and with a
stamp upon the ground.

'Stay there!' she said, 'or I'll proclaim you to the house, and the
whole street! If you try to eva