Gertrude’s eyes dilated with horror. She was confused and startled. She could not comprehend her position or why they were there; and as the recollection of the happy evening she had spent came to mingle with the chaos of fancies and surmises that bewildered her brain, it seemed to her like some strange nightmare, from which she felt that she would soon awake into peace and repose.
To make the scene more impressive, the heavy, deep booming of a clock striking midnight floated into the room with a strange jangle of other bells, some slow, some hurried, all bent on proclaiming the same fact—that another day was dead, another being born.
As the woman repeated her question, Huish’s eyes grew dark with rage, and he pointed to the door.
“Go down,” he said, “at once, or—”
She shrank from him for a moment as she saw his look; but her jealous rage mastered her fear, and she stepped farther into the room.
Huish seemed undecided what to do; he glanced at Gertrude, then at the woman, and then back to see that the former was looking at him imploringly, as if asking him to end the scene.
“Go back to bed,” he said firmly; “you are ill!” and he laid his hand upon the woman’s arm.
“Worse in mind than in body!” she cried, starting away. “Girl,” she continued passionately, “you look truthful and unspoiled; tell me who you are.”
“Oh yes!” said Gertrude quickly, as she advanced with extended hand, and a look of pity in her face. “I am Mrs Huish.”
The woman’s lower jaw dropped, and a blank, stony look came into her eyes.