"Thank you, Miss," said Susan warmly. But her face darkened again as quickly as it had brightened. I could see that a great doubt or fear had her in its grip.
It was unkind of me; but I had had enough of the whole business for one morning. "Finish my hair, Susan," I said; and I sat down again before the glass.
Susan resumed the work. But she had hardly taken one of my tresses into her hand before she flung it from her almost madly, and fell on her knees at my feet.
"Miss Gertrude," she cried. "Promise! Swear before God that you will not take him away from me!"
I was thunderstruck. But she was still crouched at my side, gripping my knees.
"Susan," I said sternly, "you are forgetting yourself. Get up. You are not well. Go to your room. I shall manage my hair somehow. Go to your room and lie down."
She gripped me fiercelier than before. "Before God, Miss Gertrude," she repeated. "Promise! Swear! Swear you won't drive him away."
"Drive" was a more endurable word. Besides, her fear and anguish were so sincere that my mere dignity shrivelled away like scorched paper in their blaze. For a second or two it was impossible to be mistress and maid. We were two women.
"Susan," I said very kindly, "if I must swear anything I will swear this. Like you, I am fatherless and motherless. And I swear that I will do my whole duty by you. If I honestly fear that there is misery lurking for you in this offer of marriage, I'll work and fight against it even if you kneel here weeping and praying all day for a year. But if I can honestly believe that it is for your happiness, there's nothing in reason that I won't do to bring it to pass. Now go to your room."
She has gone.