“Never mind,” I said, stamping my foot. “Tell me everything—every word.”
Then it all came out in a flood: How, since my removal, madam had visited more and more upon her innocent head the trespasses of her poor little friend and sister; how this habit, vindictive at the best, had grown into a very fury of spite (which I laughed much to hear about) when de Crespigny’s wandering fancy had begun (as it inevitably had) to turn from the hop-pole, which had invited it to be wreathed about itself, to the ripe little sapling growing so snug beside; how, in her jealousy, my lady had driven her below stairs, and at last made her altogether consort with the servants as her proper peers, who had only been lifted by her generosity out of the gutter; how, not content with this, literal, debasement, she had thought further to soil her by forcing upon her the reversion of her tipsy cavaliere servente (as, anyhow, I chose to think him), a tyranny which had at last driven the soft little creature to despair and rebellion. So she told me all, though with less force and conviction, poor simplicity, than I have chosen to put into her relation.
“And you was gone—and how did you escape, Diana?—and I hated Mr. de Crespigny as much as I hate this one—and it all makes no difference, and I don’t know how I can bear it longer,” she cried, in a breath.
“Very well, then,” I said, and looked sternly at her. “You must find the courage to run away.”
I had thought that the very suggestion would make her faint; but instead, to my surprise, a rose of colour flew to her pale cheeks.
“Yes,” she whispered. “If I only knew where!”
O, fie on madam! She must have been a cruel task-mistress, indeed!
“There!” I said, “you naughty little thing! But confess to me first what you have heard tell about your sister.”
“What does that matter,” she murmured, hanging her head, “when nothing in the world can ever alter my love for you?”
I took her in my arms, and touched her little simple toilette into shape here and there.