Instinctively she clutched the tell-tale letter in her hand and scrambled off the bed. Her first thought was for the little dressing-table. She pulled up the looking-glass (ah, that was no liar); rubbed her cheeks with her hands to try and soften their haggardness; smoothed her hair rapidly; shook out her skirts, and passed on trembling legs to the door. Her name met her a second time as she opened it, from a few steps further up the stairs, and more urgently uttered.
"Pam! ... Are ye there?"
Her mouth was dry; her lips felt cracked like crust; her tongue a piece of red flannel, but her voice might have been less unsteady—as it might also have been louder—when she answered.
"I 'm here," she said, and with an effort to divert suspicion and appear unconcerned; "... do you want me, Emma?"
A guilty person would never ask: "... do you want me?" A guilty person would know too well, and not dare to risk the question. Don't you understand? Cunning, you see, was coming to her help—now that she was enlisted in the devil's own army. When the crime is once committed, when we have taken the infernal shilling and the devil is sure of us, he does not stint his soldiers with the armament of craft.
"Did n't ye 'ear me callin' of ye?" Miss Morland inquired, with some sharpness of reproof at having been kept at the occupation.
"... I can't have done," said Pam. "... Have you been calling long?"
"Ah 've been callin' loud enough, onny road," Miss Morland protested. "What 's gotten ye upstairs?"
Pam's fingers tightened their hold of the letter in her pocket.
"... I 've been..."—she cast a beseeching look around the room for inspiration; the devil furnished her at once—"washing myself."