"Nonsense! no; I've learned no such thing!"
"What then? who is the impudent creature you are anathematizing?"
"Aunt Belle's governess. She actually waylaid me in the hall and forced me to stand still and listen while she uttered a warning against him, pretending that he was an old acquaintance of hers. I shall complain to aunt and have her turned adrift for her impertinence."
"Better not," laughed Reba; "'twould only tend to rouse suspicion against him. It must be very late; I advise you to wake up your maid and get ready for bed."
The encounter had left Miss Worth in quite as unamiable a frame of mind as that of her antagonist; for the insulting arrogance of Juliet's manner had sorely wounded her pride; it was hard to take such treatment from one who was her superior in nothing but the accident of wealth, and in fact decidedly inferior in the higher gifts of intellect and education.
"I wash my hands of the whole affair; I will leave her to her fate," Miss Worth said to herself as she turned in at her own door again and secured it after her.
With that she endeavored to dismiss the whole matter from her mind; she was exceedingly weary and must have rest, and presently everything was forgotten in a heavy, dreamless sleep.
But with the first moment of wakefulness the burden again pressed heavily. She could not be indifferent to her brother's wrong-doing nor to the danger of his discovery, arrest and punishment for his former crime.
But the holidays were over and she must return to her duties in the schoolroom; perhaps it was well for her that it was so, since it compelled her to give her thoughts to other subjects.