For a while she could not speak; then raised a face of mottled purple and white, and, dabbing her cheeks with a handkerchief not of the cleanest, choked out between her sobs:
"My last week--Saturday--Saturday I go--disgrace--ugh, ugh--dismissed-- Archdeacon."
"But I don't understand," said Ronder, "who goes? Who's disgraced?"
"I go!" cried Miss Milton, suddenly uncurling her body and her sobs checked by her anger. "I shouldn't have given way like this, and before you, Canon Ronder. But I'm ruined--ruined!--and for doing my duty!"
Her change from the sobbing, broken woman to the impassioned avenger of justice was so immediate that Ronder was confused. "I still don't understand, Miss Milton," he said. "Do you say you are dismissed, and, if so, by whom?"
"I am dismissed! I am dismissed!" cried Miss Milton. "I leave here on Saturday. I have been librarian to this Library, Canon Ronder, for more than twenty years. Yes, twenty years. And now I'm dismissed like a dog with a month's notice."
She had collected her tears and, with a marvellous rapidity, packed them away. Her eyes, although red, were dry and glittering; her cheeks were of a pasty white marked with small red spots of indignation. Ronder, looking at her and her dirty hands, thought that he had never seen a woman whom he disliked more.
"But, Miss Milton," he said, "if you'll forgive me, I still don't understand. Under whom do you hold this appointment? Who have the right to dismiss you? and, whoever it was, they must have given some reason."
Miss Milton, was now the practical woman, speaking calmly, although her bosom still heaved and her fingers plucked confusedly with papers on the table in front of her. She spoke quietly, but behind her words there were so vehement a hatred, bitterness and malice that Ronder observed her with a new interest.
"There is a Library Committee, Canon Ronder," she said. "Lady St. Leath is the president. It has in its hands the appointment of the librarian. It appointed me more than twenty years ago. It has now dismissed me with a month's notice for what it calls--what it calls, Canon Ronder-- 'abuse and neglect of my duties.' Abuse! Neglect! Me! about whom there has never been a word of complaint until--until----"