"Miss Crane, come back!—I insist—I command!" screeched Mrs. Darrow, like an angry parrot.
But Miriam paid no heed, and the worsted one was constrained to take refuge in tears.
"To be treated so in my own house!" she wept, "and by one of the lower orders, too! Bad woman—and red-haired minx that she is!"
But all Mrs. Darrow's expletives could not alter the situation. If she turned Miriam out of the house, as she would have dearly loved to do, there would be trouble with her uncle; and if, on the other hand, she kept her for the month, she would have to treat her civilly, since Miss Crane did not—as she put it—know her place; the word "place" being construed by Mrs. Darrow to mean a capacity for swallowing meekly as much of her bullying and bad temper as she might choose to indulge in. And as for this Miriam showed no kind of aptitude, she perforce had to make up her mind to the inevitable. So she went to bed, and dosed herself with a wondrous mixture of the combined "bromides," and brooded over her wrongs. She was a spiteful and malicious woman, with an element of hysteria thrown in, and she would freely have given a year of her life to do Miriam an injury. For the next few days she kept a cat-like watch on her. Possessed of a trifle more brain power she might have been dangerous. But, as it was, she inclined more to that peculiar class of cantankerous and neurotic female for whom the ducking-stool was surely designed.
Meanwhile, Miriam anxiously awaited a reply from Jabez. Two days before Christmas she received it. A dirty envelope, containing an even more dirty half-sheet of paper, was thrust into her hand by Mrs. Darrow herself, who, noting the particularly soiled appearance of it, immediately became suspicious. On the paper was scribbled a curt announcement from the writer that he would be at Lesser Thorpe on Christmas Eve at ten o'clock. Miriam was to meet him in the churchyard at that time, or, as he put it, "it'll be worse for you and me!"
There was no help for it, the appointment must be kept, though how she was to manage to get out at such an hour she did not know. When the night came, it was fine and frosty, although snow had been falling heavily during the day. She decided to put a bold face on it, and about nine o'clock presented herself to Mrs. Darrow in her hat and cloak.
"With your permission," she said briefly, "I am just going to run over and see Mrs. Parsley."
"Why on earth should you want to see Mrs. Parsley at this hour?"
"Well, the truth is, I have received a very important letter from London, and I want to consult her."
She felt half inclined to refuse, but remembering that Mrs. Parsley was a close friend of Miriam's, and had, moreover, anything but a soft tongue, she thought better of it, and consented. But she firmly believed her governess had some very different object for her errand, and determined to follow her.