"If you think," she said, "that I am going to leave my mother alone with anybody—gentleman or lady—you are mistaken. If you want her to be quiet, leave her alone yourselves—she'll stay quiet enough if she's left to me."
"Sabina," said Enid, with a gentle dignity of tone which commanded the Rector's admiration and respect, "you know that your mother wanted me to come."
"I know that she's off her head!" said Sabina angrily. "She doesn't know what she says or what she wants. It's nonsense, all of it! And meaning no disrespect to you, Miss Vane"—in a lower but sulkier tone—"if you would but go away and leave her to me, she'd be all the better for it in the end."
"Hush!" said Enid, raising her hand—the serenity of her face was quite undisturbed by Sabina's expostulation. "She is coming to herself again—she is going to speak."
There was a moment's silence in the room. The sick woman was lying still; her eyes wandered and her lips moved, but as yet no articulate sound issued from them. In apparently uncontrollable passion, Sabina stamped violently and shook the rail of the iron bedstead with her hands.
"She ain't going to speak; she is off her head, I tell you! She ain't got anything to say."
The Rector looked at her steadily. For the first time it occurred to him that the younger woman had some unworthy motive in her desire to silence her mother and to get the listeners out of the room. Dislike of interference, jealousy, and bad temper would not entirely account, he thought, for her intense and angry agitation. Had Mrs. Meldreth and her daughter some secret which the mother would gladly confess and the girl was fain to hide?
A feeble voice sounded from the bed.
"Is it Miss Enid?" said Mrs. Meldreth. "Has she come?"
"No," said Sabina boldly and loudly. "You go to sleep, mother, and don't you bother about Miss Enid."