“Don’t be frightened!” said she, and they were strange words for the mistress of a house to have to use to a burglar. “I saw you out of my bedroom window when you were hiding under those trees, so I slipped downstairs, and then I heard you at the window. I should have opened it for you if you had waited, but you managed it yourself just as I came up.”
I still held in my hand the long clasp-knife with which I had opened the shutter. I was unshaven and grimed from a week on the roads. Altogether, there are few people who would have cared to face me alone at one in the morning; but this woman, if I had been her lover meeting her by appointment, could not have looked upon me with a more welcoming eye. She laid her hand upon my sleeve and drew me into the room.
“What’s the meaning of this, ma’am? Don’t get trying any little games upon me,” said I, in my roughest way—and I can put it on rough when I like. “It’ll be the worse for you if you play me any trick,” I added, showing her my knife.
“I will play you no trick,” said she. “On the contrary, I am your friend, and I wish to help you.”
“Excuse me, ma’am, but I find it hard to believe that,” said I. “Why should you wish to help me?”
“I have my own reasons,” said she; and then suddenly, with those black eyes blazing out of her white face: “It’s because I hate him, hate him, hate him! Now you understand.”
I remembered what the landlord had told me, and I did understand. I looked at her Ladyship’s face, and I knew that I could trust her. She wanted to revenge herself upon her husband. She wanted to hit him where it would hurt him most—upon the pocket. She hated him so that she would even lower her pride to take such a man as me into her confidence if she could gain her end by doing so. I’ve hated some folk in my time, but I don’t think I ever understood what hate was until I saw that woman’s face in the light of the taper.
“You’ll trust me now?” said she, with another coaxing touch upon my sleeve.
“Yes, your Ladyship.”
“You know me, then?”