Without another word Aunt Joyce stalked forth, and had Milisent by the arm ere she found time to scream. Then she shrieked and shrank, but Aunt Joyce held her fast.
“Get you gone!” was all she said to Sir Edwin.
“Nay, Mistress, tell me rather by what right—”
“Right!” Aunt Joyce loosed her hold of Milisent, and went and stood right before him. “Right!—from you to me!”
“Mistress, I cry you mercy, but we be entire strangers.”
“Be we?” she made answer, with more bitterness in her voice than ever I heard therein. “Be we such strangers? What! think you I know you not, Leonard Norris? You counted on the change of all these years to hide you from Aubrey and Lettice, and you counted safely enough. They would not know you if they stood here. But did you fancy years could hide you from Joyce Morrell? Traitor! a woman will know the man she has loved, though his own mother were to pass him by unnoted.”
Sir Edwin uttered not a word, but stood gazing on Aunt Joyce as though she had bound him by a spell.
She turned back to us a moment. “Milisent and Edith, go home!” she saith. “Milisent, thank God that He hath saved thee from the very jaws of Hell—from a man worser than any fiend. Edith, tell thy father what hath happed, but say nought of all this to thy mother. I shall follow you anon. I have yet more ado with him here. Make thy mind easy, child—he’ll not harm me. Now go.”
Milisent needed no persuasions. She seemed as though Aunt Joyce’s words had stunned her, and she followed me like a dog. We spake no word to each other all the way. When we reached home, Milly went straight up to her own chamber: and I, being mindful of Aunt Joyce’s bidding, went in search of Father, whom I found at his books in his closet.