“Go back now, Peter,” whispered Keziah, “and not a word of this to a soul.”
“But what’s he here for?” said Peter, in the same tone.
“You miserable jealous pate,” whispered the old servant fiercely, “if you don’t be off—”
She said no more, for Peter was off, and then she turned to Mr Brough.
“You may well look,” she whispered to him, as he said a few unnoticed words to May. “All your doing—all your doing. Another minute, and the poor lamb would have been sleeping in the river.”
Tom Brough started, and then caught May in his arms, and bore her up-stairs, where for quite an hour she sat in a dazed, heedless way that troubled Keziah more than would a passionate outburst.
“If she’d only cry,” she whispered at last to Mr Brough, “But you won’t press for it now, Mr Brough; you won’t, sir, I’m sure. People say you’re a good man, and that you’re kind and charitable. Look at the poor thing; her heart’s broke—it is indeed.”
“I’m going now,” said Mr Brough in answer, and then when Keziah accompanied him down to the door, “Do not leave her for an instant, if you love the poor child; and, look here, Keziah, the wedding must take place, and it is for her good—mark me, for her good. I love her too well to make her unhappy, and if you do your duty you will help me all you can.”
Keziah closed the door without a word, and a minute after she was kneeling beside and crying over the heartbroken girl.