elt that smile in the small of my back.
I tried to get to the door. She stopped me. She says: 'Where's Miss
Eunice?' I says: 'Gone out.' She says: 'Is there anybody in the
drawing-room?' I says: 'No, miss.' She says: 'Tell Miss Jillgall I want
to speak to her, and say I am waiting in the drawing-room.' It's every
word of it true! And, if a poor servant may give an opinion, I don't
like the look of it."

The doctor dismissed Maria. "Whatever it is," he said to me, "you must
go and hear it."

I am not a courageous woman; I expressed myself as being willing to go
to her, if the doctor went with me. He said that was impossible; she
would probably refuse to speak before any witness; and certainly before
him. But he promised to look after Philip in my absence, and to wait
below if it really so happened that I wanted him. I need only ring the
bell, and he would come to me the moment he heard it. Such kindness as
this roused my courage, I suppose. At any rate, I went upstairs.

She was standing by the fire-place, with her elbow on the chimney-piece,
and her head, resting on her hand. I stopped just inside the door,
waiting to hear what she had to say. In this position her side-face only
was presented to me. It was a ghastly face. The eye that I could see
turned wickedly on me when I came in--then turned away again. Otherwise,
she never moved. I confess I trembled, but I did my best to disguise it.

She broke out suddenly with what she had to say: "I won't allow this
state of things to go on any longer. My horror of an exposure which will
disgrace the family has kept me silent, wrongly silent, so far. Philip's
life is in danger. I am forgetting my duty to my affianced husband, if
I allow myself to be kept away from him any longer. Open those locked
doors, and relieve me from the sight of you. Open the doors, I say, or
you will both of you--you the accomplice, she the wretch who directs
you--repent it to the end of your lives."

In my own mind, I asked myself if she had gone mad. But I only answered:
"I don't understand you."

She said again: "You are Eunice's accomplice."

"Accomplice in what?" I asked.

She turned her head slowly and faced me. I shrank from looking at her.

"All the circumstances prove it," she went on. "I have supplanted Eunice
in Philip's affection. She was once engaged to marry him; I am engaged
to marry him now. She is resolved that he shall never make me his wife.
He will die if I delay any longe