Olivia glanced at the woman, and saw that, in spite of the dry hardness of her manner, there was a kindly look in her eyes. Indeed, Mrs. Warmington, whose heart was a little parched towards the world in general, had taken a fancy to the bright-cheeked, handsome girl.
“I suppose you know,” she went on, “that the Branders pride themselves upon being what is called a ‘good’ family. You will also know that in all ‘good’ families there is generally more than one ‘bad lot.’ Although I am a connection of theirs, I must confess that there has been quite an exceptional number among the Branders. And, awkwardly enough, it happens that the family interest lies chiefly in the Church. The Branders have been clergymen for generations, generally with little credit to themselves. Here and there has been an exception, but never more than one in a generation; the exception in our time is Meredith. His two brothers, Vernon and one who is now in China, showed from the very first how unfit they were for their calling. I don’t blame them much; I don’t praise Meredith much; their temperaments are different, and it can scarcely be called their fault that only one of the three is a round peg in a round hole. Well, you know that both my master and his brother, Meredith, fixed their choice on the same lady, and that Meredith married her. After that, Vernon, who was no particular credit to his cloth before, grew wilder than ever. It was not long before his constant visits to the Hall Farm became the talk of the village; for Nellie Mitchell hadn’t the best name in the world. Before long it was rumored about that the girl had been seen, late in the evening, in the neighborhood of St. Cuthbert’s.”
“Did you live here then?” abruptly asked Olivia, who had been sitting in an attitude of straining attention, with close-shut lips and heaving breast.
“I had been here six weeks when—when the end came. Tongues had been going faster than ever for the last week or two, and, of course, some of the talk had reached my ears. I knew, from little things I had seen—a portrait, a glove, slight changes in his manner when speaking of her—that my master had not yet got over his fancy for Mrs. Brander, married though she was. Then I heard whispers of Nellie Mitchell’s jealousy; how she flaunted past the vicar’s wife in the churchyard on Sunday with a swing in her walk and a toss of her head which were almost insults; of letters which were left in a wood close by, some of which fell into strange hands. I was shocked by these reports, but I looked upon them as partly gossip, and considered that, in any case, they were no business of mine. One evening in August I was standing at the window of the front room watching the sunset, when I saw Nellie Mitchell coming down the lane past the house. Something in the girl’s appearance and manner struck me as it had never done before. It was not the first time that I had seen her come this way; but on all previous occasions it had been after dark that I had seen a figure which I believed to be hers slinking past hurriedly, as if anxious to escape notice. Now the girl walked boldly—one would have said defiantly—with a flushed face and an expression of reckless resolution. She carried in her hand a small white packet, and, as she came opposite the house, she stopped, and, turning so as to face the gate, deliberately untied the string or ribbon which held her little parcel together, and counted the letters of which it consisted. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I could see her red lips move as she counted them out to herself, and then slowly tied them up again with one angry and determined look up at the windows of this house from her bold black eyes. She did not see me; but it was evident that if a hundred people had been staring at her out of these empty, shutterless windows, it would have been all the same to her. I was shocked, horror-stricken. For the first time the full meaning of all the ugly rumors I had heard became plain to me: my master had been this woman’s lover!”
Olivia shivered at the woman’s words, which seemed doubly shocking from the matter-of-fact, somewhat hard tone in which they were spoken.
“As the evening went on, I grew more and more restless and uneasy. Certain noises I had heard from time to time in the night, which I had put down to the rats, came back to my mind. It now seemed to me that they might have been due to another cause. They had come from one of the front unused rooms. If thoughts of evil now came into my mind, how could I be blamed? My master was away, doing his rounds in the parish; he had told me he should not be back till late. All the rest of the evening I watched from the window, but I did not see the girl return. The thought came into my mind to go out and try and find out where she had gone; whether she was really, as the villagers’ hints suggested, waiting for some one in the churchyard. But I was afraid; I had no mind to interfere in other people’s affairs; it has always been my custom not to do so. For a young girl like you I am ready to break my rule but not for such as Nellie Mitchell.”
And Mrs. Warmington’s lips closed pharisaically.
“Nine o’clock came, ten o’clock, half-past ten; it was quite dark. Then, as I was walking up and down, with an attack of what I call the ‘fidgets,’ there came through the open windows a scream so shrill, so horrible, that I staggered into the nearest chair as if a blow from a strong man’s arm had sent me there. ‘Nellie Mitchell! Nellie Mitchell!’ I felt myself saying, hoarsely. Then I think I fainted, for what I remember next was to find myself hanging over the chair with my head on Mr. Vernon’s writing-table. I got up, at first scarcely knowing what it was that had startled me. I was in utter darkness; in my first spasm of horror I had thrown down the lamp. As I groped about to find a match, my fingers trembling so much that they were clumsy and almost powerless, I heard a footstep outside the door. It was my master, Vernon Brander!
“I stopped in my search, and drew back instinctively, as I heard him fumbling at the handle of the room door. It seemed such a long time before he came in that the whole of this ugly story—the villagers’ gossip, the sight I had seen, and the sound I had heard that evening—all seemed to pass quite slowly through my mind as I stood there waiting for him to come in. At last the door opened slowly, and my master stood in the room with me. I heard his breath coming in guttural gasps; I heard the table creak and the objects on it rattle as he came forward and leaned upon it. I almost shrieked, middle-aged, matter-of-fact woman that I was, when he suddenly whispered, in a hoarse voice—
“‘Who’s that?’