“You are making a mistake, Maria.”
“Don’t ‘Maria’ me, please—ma’am,” cried the housemaid; and that “ma’am” was tremendous.
“Stop,” said the nurse, gently and firmly, and her eyes seemed to fascinate the woman, as a hand was laid upon her arm. “You have passed through a very trying ordeal lately, and it has affected your nervous system. You must not give way to an angry, hysterical fit like this. It is dangerous in your state.”
“Oh, don’t you begin to ‘my lady’ it over me.” Nurse Elisia changed colour a little, and darted a penetrating look at the speaker, but her countenance resumed its old calm directly, and she went on firmly.
“Take my advice, Maria; now do as I tell you. Never mind about the work—I will do what is necessary myself. Go up to your bedroom and lie down for an hour, till you have grown calm and cool.”
“I shan’t,” cried Maria, with the passionate utterance of an angry child; “and I won’t stop in a house where—where,”—there was a hysterical outburst of sobbing here—“such goings on—and I’ll take my month.”
“Let me take you up to your room.”
“No, no! I won’t go. I—oh, oh, oh!”
But the strong will prevailed over the weak, and Maria suffered herself to be led along the corridor till, a figure approaching at the end, she cried spitefully through her sobs: “Of course, I know. To get me out of the way. Oh, I’m not blind.”
Nurse Elisia’s hand fell from the woman’s arm as if it had been a gymnotus, and there was an indignant look in her eyes as they met Neil Elthorne’s searchingly, in fear lest he had heard the malignant utterance.