She sat down, feeling deadly cold, for though the fire was burning brightly the room was chilly, as a room in which no fire has been lit for some days is apt to be. But it was not the cold which made Miss Prince feel so shivery, and so miserably undecided in her mind. For the first time in her now long life she was confronted with a problem to which she could see no solution that would not bring disaster, even death, in its train.
Lucy Warren came up with her mistress’s breakfast tray. She drew up a small table and set it before her in silence, making no remark, as almost any other young woman would have done, as to Miss Prince’s surprising choice of a breakfast room, and she was just leaving the room when her mistress called out: “Lucy!”
Lucy turned round. “Yes, ma’am?” she said inquiringly.
Always Miss Prince insisted on being accorded brevet rank both by her own servants and the people of the village. She hated the term “Miss.”
“Come nearer, Lucy. I want to speak to you.”
And then, somewhat to Miss Prince’s astonishment, she saw that her words startled the girl. Lucy became painfully red, as she stood before her mistress twisting and untwisting a bit of apron in her hand, and looking very unlike her usual composed self.
“I want you to cast your mind back to last April and May—I mean, of course, when your friend Agnes Dean was my servant. You used to be in and out of my kitchen a good deal, I think.”
Lucy answered freely, eagerly: “Yes, ma’am, I used to come along most days.”
“Now I want to ask you a very serious question, Lucy, and I rely on you to keep the fact that I have asked it of you to yourself. Did she tell you, or were you aware of your own knowledge, that Mr. Garlett was ever in this house at a time when I was out of it?”
“Not that I know of, ma’am. The only person who used sometimes to come and wait for you while you was out was Miss Cheale.”