In the midst of her horrors and agitation Mrs. Mack's curiosity was not altogether stunned. She wondered vaguely, as she pattered along, with what dreadful exhibition of her infernal skill Mary Matchwell had disordered the senses of poor little Mrs. Nutter—had she called up a red-eyed, sooty-raven to her shoulder—as old Miss Alice Lee (when she last had a dish of tea with her) told her she had once done before—and made the ominous bird speak the doom of poor Mrs. Nutter from that perch? or had she raised the foul fiend in bodily shape, or showed her Nutter's dead face through the water?
With these images flitting before her brain, she hurried on at her best pace, fancying every moment that she heard the rumble of the accursed coach behind her, and longing to see the friendly uniform of the Royal Irish Artillery, and the familiar house fronts of the cheery little street, and above all, to hide herself securely among her own household gods.
When Nutter returned to the parlour his wife had not yet left it.
'I'll attend here, go you up stairs,' said Nutter. He spoke strangely, and looked odd, and altogether seemed strung up to a high pitch.
Out went Betty, seeing it was no good dawdling; for her master was resolute and formidable. The room, like others in old-fashioned houses with thick walls, had a double door. He shut the one with a stern slam, and then the other; and though the honest maid loitered in the hall, and, indeed, placed her ear very near the door, she was not much the wiser.
There was some imperfectly heard talk in the parlour, and cries, and sobs, and more talking. Then before Betty was aware, the door suddenly opened, and out came Mary Matchwell, with gleaming eyes, and a pale laugh of spite and victory and threw a look, as she passed, upon the maid that frightened her, and so vanished into her coach.
Nutter disengaged himself from poor Mrs. Nutter's arms, in which he was nearly throttled, while she sobbed and shrieked—
'Oh! Charley, dear—dearest Charley—Charley, darling—isn't it frightful?' and so on.
'Betty, take care of her,' was all he said, and that sternly, like a man quietly desperate, but with a dismal fury in his face.
He went into the little room on the other side of the now darkening hall, and shut the door, and locked it inside. It was partly because he did not choose to talk just now any more with his blubbering and shrieking wife. He was a very kind husband, in his way, but a most incapable nurse, especially in a case of hysterics.