Then, as she stood there, panting and ready to faint with horror, she heard Garstang’s angry voice and the whining replies of the housekeeper, while, though she could not grasp a word, she could tell by the tones that the woman was being abused for coming down, and was trying to make some excuse.
How that night passed Kate Wilton hardly knew, save that it was one great struggle to master a weak feeling of pitiful helplessness which prompted her to say, “I can do no more.”
At times, from utter mental exhaustion, she sank into a kind of stupor, more than sleep, from which she invariably started with a faint cry of horror and despair, feeling that she was in some great peril, and that the darkness was peopled with something against which she must struggle in spite of her weakness. It was a nightmare-like experience, constantly repeated, and the grey morning found her feverish and weak, but in body only. Despair had driven her to bay, and there was a light in her eyes, a firmness in her words, which impressed the housekeeper when she came at breakfast time.
“Master’s compliments, ma’am, and he is waiting breakfast,” she said; “and I beg your pardon, ma’am, but I thought I ought to tell you he is very angry. I never saw him like it before; and if you would be ruled by me, I’d go down and see him. You have been very hard to him, I know; and you can’t, I’m sure, wish to hurt the feelings of one who is the best of men.”
Kate sat looking away from her in silence, and this encouraged the woman to proceed.
“He was very cross when he found out that you had been persuading poor Becky to post a letter for you. He suspected her, and had her into the lib’ry and made her confess; and then he took the letter away from her. But that was nothing to what he was when he found that instead of going to bed Becky had come down again and was waiting to try and let you out I thought he would have turned her into the street at once. But oh, my dear, he is such a good man, he wouldn’t do that. But he said it was disgracefully treacherous of her. And between ourselves, my dear, it was quite impossible. Master has, I know, taken all kinds of precautions to keep you from going away. He told me that it was only a silly fit of yours, and that you didn’t mean it; and, oh, my dear, do pray, pray be sensible. Think what a good chance it is for you to marry one of the noblest and best of—”
Sarah Plant ceased speaking, and stood with her lips apart, gazing blankly at the prisoner, who had slowly turned her head and fixed her with her indignant eyes.
“Silence, you wretched creature!” she said, in a low, angry whisper. “How dare you address me like this! Go down to your master, and tell him that I will see him when he has done his breakfast.”
“Oh, please come now, ma’am.”
“Tell him to send me word when he is at liberty, and I will come.”