“Yes—though it may seem longer to me here. You remember you came and told me a long story about a Cornish miner. How did the tale end? What, no answer?”
None. She tried to hide herself—crush herself into the very floor where she sat, out of reach of Elizabeth's eyes.
“Ah, well, dear! I shall not ask.”
“Perhaps my husband will tell you some day. Talk to me of something else, Elizabeth. And oh! however I may look and speak, don't notice me. Let me feel that I need not make pretences with you.”
“You need not. Nothing that happens here goes beyond these four walls. Everybody tells me everything.”
Elizabeth might well say this. There was that about her which made people fearless and free in their confidence; it did not seem like talking to a mortal woman, mixed up continually in the affairs of life, but to one removed to a different sphere, where there was no chance of betrayal.
Her room was a safe confessional, and she was a sort of general conscience in the house.
“Everybody tells you everything,” repeated Agatha. “Does my husband?”
“Not yet; at least not in words.”
“Then I will not. Only let me come here, and”—