t Julia remained; she had not got her dismissal yet, and
it was imperative she should get it, for there was no telling when the
ground rice would be discovered. But she soon got what she wanted;
after a very little more inciting, Herr Van de Greutz ordered her out
of his house a great deal more peremptorily than she had been ordered
out of the Van Heigens'. She was to go at once; she was to pack her
things and go, and Marthe was to see that she took nothing but what
was her own; she was the most untrustworthy and incompetent pig that
the devil ever sent to spoil good food, and steal silver spoons.

To this Julia replied by asking for her wages. At first Van de Greutz
refused; but Julia, with some effrontery, considering the
circumstances, declined to go without them, so eventually he thought
better of it and paid her. After that she and Marthe went up-stairs,
and she packed and Marthe looked on, closely scrutinising everything.
When all was done, and she herself dressed, she walked out of the
house, with the formula fastened inside her cuff, and the explosive
balanced on her head. And the old man who did the rough work about the
place came with her, wheeling her luggage on a barrow as far as the
gate. Here he shot it out, and left her to wait till she might hail
some passing cart, and so get herself conveyed to the town.

CHAPTER XIII

THE HEIRESS

There was a fog on the river and while the tide was low no craft
moved; but with its rising there came a stir of life, the mist that
crept low on the brown water became articulate with syren voices and
the thud of screws and the wash of water churned by belated boats. The
steamers called eerily, out of the distance a heart-broken cry like no
other thing on earth, suddenly near at hand a hoot terrific; but
nothing was to be seen except rarely when out of the yellow
impenetrableness a hull rose abruptly, a vague dark mass almost within
touching distance. Julia stood on deck and listened while the little
Dutch boat crept up; she found something fascinating in this strange,
shrouded river, haunted, like a stream of the nether world, with
lamentable bodiless voices. The fog had delayed them, of course; the
afternoon was now far advanced; they had been compelled to wait some
long time while the tide was down, and even now that it was coming up,
they could go but slowly. The last through train to Marbridge would
have left Paddington before the Tower Stairs were reached;