Hylda chuckled again maliciously.
"It's the mere truth."
"Still, I think I shall warn him against you, and have you dismissed,"—this with that feminine instinct of the dagger that plunged deepest, the lash that cut most bitterly.
"You try!" hissed Hylda sharply, as it were secretly, with a nod of menace. "I am not anybody! I am not some defenseless housemaid, the only rival you have experienced hitherto, perhaps. I am—at any rate, you try! You dare! Touch me, and I'll wither your arm——"
"Drive on!" cried Rosalind almost in a scream.
"Wait!" shrilled Hylda—"you shall hear me!"
"Cabman, please——!" wailed Rosalind despairingly.
And now at last the cab was off, Hylda Prout running with it to pant into it some final rancor; and when it left her, she remained there on the pavement a minute, unable to move, trembling from head to foot, watching the vehicle as it sped away from her.
When she re-entered the library the first thing that she saw was Rosalind's cross-folded note to Osborne, and, still burning inwardly, she snatched it up, tore it open, and read:
I will write again. Meantime, high hope! I have discovered that your purloined dagger has been in the possession of the late lady's-maid, Pauline. "A small thing but mine own." I am now taking it to Inspector Furneaux's.
R. M.