“What are you doing out of doors this time of the night?” she asked, but without quite her usual arrogance, for, although she tried to put it on, her voice trembled too much.
I retorted the question.
“What were you doing out yourself?” I said.
“Looking after you, of course.”
“That’s why you locked the door, I suppose—to keep me out.”
She had no answer ready, but looked as if she would have struck me.
“I shall let your father know of your goings on,” she said, recovering herself a little.
“You need not take the trouble. I shall tell him myself at breakfast to-morrow morning. I have nothing to hide. You had better tell him too.”
I said this not that I did not believe she had been out to look for me, but because I thought she had locked the door to annoy me, and I wanted to take my revenge in rudeness. For doors were seldom locked in the summer nights in that part of the country. She made me no reply, but turned and left me, not even shutting the door. I closed it, and went to bed weary enough.