to YOU."

"What events do you mean?"

"Events that occurred at Old Welmingham when your husband was
parish-clerk at that place, and before the time when your daughter was
born."

I had reached the woman at last through the barrier of impenetrable
reserve that she had tried to set up between us. I saw her temper
smouldering in her eyes--as plainly as I saw her hands grow restless,
then unclasp themselves, and begin mechanically smoothing her dress
over her knees.

"What do you know of those events?" she asked.

"All that Mrs. Clements could tell me," I answered.

There was a momentary flush on her firm square face, a momentary
stillness in her restless hands, which seemed to betoken a coming
outburst of anger that might throw her off her guard. But no--she
mastered the rising irritation, leaned back in her chair, crossed her
arms on her broad bosom, and with a smile of grim sarcasm on her thick
lips, looked at me as steadily as ever.

"Ah! I begin to understand it all now," she said, her tamed and
disciplined anger only expressing itself in the elaborate mockery of
her tone and manner. "You have got a grudge of your own against Sir
Percival Glyde, and I must help you to wreak it. I must tell you this,
that, and the other about Sir Percival and myself, must I? Yes, indeed?
You have been prying into my private affairs. You think you have found
a lost woman to deal with, who lives here on sufferance, and who will
do anything you ask for fear you may injure her in the opinions of the
town's-people. I see through you and your precious speculation--I do!
and it amuses me. Ha! ha!"

She stopped for a moment, her arms tightened over her bosom, and she
laughed to herself--a hard, harsh, angry laugh.

"You don't know how I have lived in this place, and what I have done in
this place, Mr. What's-your-name," she went on. "I'll tell you, before
I ring the bell and have you shown out. I came here a wronged woman--I
came here robbed of my character and determined to claim it back. I've
been years and years about it--and I HAVE claimed it back. I have
matched the respectable people fairly and openly on their own ground.
If they say anything against me now they must say it in secret--they
can't say it, they daren't say it, openly. I stand high enough in this
town to be out of your reach. THE CLERGYMAN BOWS TO ME. Aha! you
didn't bargain for that when you came here. Go to the church and
inquire about me--you wil