She stood watching in the shaded room till a slight noise below made her start, and hastily glancing at her daughter to see that she slept, she stole on tiptoe from the bedside, and crept downstairs to where a sharp angular-looking woman of four or five and twenty was standing in the little drawing-room with her shawl over one arm, and her bonnet swinging from the strings.
She looked flushed with exercise, and her hair about her temples was wet with perspiration, while her boots were covered with dust.
“Well?”
“Well,” said the woman, with a rude, impatient gesture. “You must give me a glass of wine. I’m dead beat. It’s quite four miles there, and as hot as hot.”
“How dare you speak to me in that insolent way, Jane?” said Mrs Riversley angrily.
“Oh,” said the woman sharply, “this is no time far ma’aming and bowing and scraping; servants and missuses is all human beings together when they’re in trouble, and folks don’t make no difference between them.”
“But you might speak in a more respectful way, Jane,” said Mrs Riversley, biting her lips, and looking pale.
“Dessay I might,” said the woman; “but this ain’t the time. Well, you want to know about the—”
“Hush! for Heaven’s sake, hush,” exclaimed Mrs Riversley, glancing round.
“Oh, there’s no one near us,” said the woman with a mocking laugh; “not even the police, so you needn’t be afraid. It ain’t murder.”