"When was Mrs. Bell last in the attics?" she said.
"I was with her," continued Jane. "I used to play a good bit with Missie Mercy in those days, you remember, ma'am? Mrs. Bell was poking about, but I was anxious for Mercy to come home to go on with our play, and I went to the window. I looked out. There was a fine view from that 'ere attic window. I looked out, and I saw—"
"What?" asked Lydia Purcell. She had laid down her knife and fork now, and her face had grown a trifle pale.
"Oh! nothing much. I saw you, ma'am, and Missie Mercy going into that poor mason's cottage, him as died of the malignant fever. You was there a good half hour or so. It was a day or two later as poor Missie sickened."
"I did not think it was fever," said Lydia. "Believe me, believe me, Jane, I did not know it certainly until we were leaving the cottage. Oh! my poor lamb, my poor innocent, innocent murdered lamb!"
Lydia covered her face with her hands; she was trembling. Even her strong, hard-worked hands were white from the storm of feeling within.
"You knew of this, you knew this of me all these years, and you never told. You never told even me until to-night," said Lydia presently, raising a haggard face.
"I knew it, and I never told even you until to-night," repeated Jane.
"Why do you tell me to-night?"
"May I take away the supper, ma'am, or shall you want any more?"