Mattie had found strength to leave her bed and sit up for a while in the chair by the fireside, when the second visitor astonished Tenchester Street by her arrival. No less a visitor than Harriet Wesden herself—who, having learned Mattie's address by degrees from the unfaithful Sidney, had made an unlooked-for raid upon the premises.
"Don't cry—don't speak—don't say anything for ever so long!" she said, with one gloved finger to her pretty mouth; "if there's anything to get over—get over it without any fuss, my dear."
Mattie was silent for a while—she turned her head away and looked at the red coals. This was a meeting that she thought would come some day; that in her heart she did not blame Sidney Hinchford for promoting, although the danger of it rendered her uneasy.
"Farther away, Harriet," she murmured at last.
"I'm not afraid," said Harriet; "I don't believe that I'm of a feverish sort, or that there's any danger. If there were, I should have come all the same, and stopped just as long, after wheedling the address from Sid."
Ann Packet fidgeted about the room; she was jealous of her charge, fearful of Mattie becoming excited, and of Harriet Wesden talking too much to her. Harriet Wesden saw this.
"You may trust me with her, Ann—I will be very careful."
"I hope you will—I shouldn't like the doctor to say I'd let you chatter her off into a fever again. You'll take care, Mattie."
"Yes, Ann."
At the door she paused again.