“She has actually gone to sleep!” said Mrs Thorne, who seemed quite to have forgotten the terrors of the past few hours. “Ah, these young people—these young people! Heigh-ho!—has—have—Dear me, how sleepy I am! I think I’ll go to bed.”
She glanced at Hazel, and hesitated for a moment, as if about to touch her, but directly after she left the room, saying—
“I won’t wake her. Poor girl! she works very hard, and must be terribly tired.”
As Mrs Thorne closed the door and went into the adjoining room, Hazel rose from her crouching attitude, her faced lined with care-marks, and a hopeless aspect of misery in her heavy eyes.
Hazel stood gazing at the door, listening to every sound from the little adjoining room, till she heard her mother sigh and throw herself upon the bed, when she said in a low voice, “God help me!” and knelt down to pray.
Chapter Thirty Three.
Paying the Piper.
“You must ask Mr Canninge, Hazel, or else Mr Burge or Mr Lambent,” said Mrs Thorne dictatorially. “Either you must ask one of those gentlemen, or I shall certainly feel that it is my duty to leave Plumton and seek a refuge at the home of one of my relatives.”