The girl looked at her with an expression of terror.
“What Juliana said to me was on the spur of the moment,” she continued. “She is sorry for it; she has been crying. She has been longest in the house, and the master is very much attached to her.”
“Then—the senhora is sending me away; you are sending me away?”
“It was on the spur of the moment,” repeated Luiza, in a low voice, blushing with shame. “She has asked my pardon.”
“And all for taking the part of the mistress!” exclaimed the girl, in accents of distress, looking at Luiza in astonishment.
Luiza understood the implied indignity, but, impatient to end the matter at once, she said,—
“Well, Joanna, let us speak no more about it; I am the mistress. I am going to pay you your wages.”
“A pretty return to make me!” exclaimed Joanna in desperation. And she added, stamping her foot with an air of determination on the floor, “But I will tell the master; yes, I will tell him; I will tell him all that has taken place. The senhora is not doing right.”
Luiza looked at her in silence. So the disaster was to come at last from her, the docile one. It was too much! She felt seized by a strange terror, a fear of her own conscience; and pressing her temples between her hands, she exclaimed, “What a punishment! My God! what a punishment!”
Suddenly she seized Joanna by the arms in her frenzy, and whispered in her ear,—