“But,” persisted Mildred, “maybe I ought to know. I wonder who this woman is. She says she stopped here once for a drink, and was frightened off by the woman with the big black eyes. That must have been Geraldine.”
“Did you speak to me?” asked the lady in question, who was passing through the hall, and had heard her name.
“Don’t tell her of the note. Simply ask about the woman,” whispered the Judge, feeling that if anything about Mildred should prove to be wrong, he would rather no one but themselves should know it.
Mildred comprehended his meaning at once, and in reply to Geraldine, said: “I have a reason for wishing to know if you remember an old woman’s coming into the kitchen and asking for water, a day or two ago.”
“Yes, I remember her well,” answered Geraldine, “for she reminded me so much of the city thieves. She asked several questions, too, about the girl who was to be married,—which was your room, and all that. Why? What of her?”
“Nothing much,” returned Mildred. “How did she look?”
“Like a witch,” answered Geraldine. “Tall, spare, angular, with a pock-marked face, a single long tooth projecting over her under lip, and a poking black bonnet. I thought I saw her going down the road just at dusk to-night, but might have been mistaken.”
Mildred turned pale at the very idea of having ever been associated with such a creature, or of meeting her alone at the deserted hut, and she was trying to think of some excuse to render Geraldine for having thus questioned her, when one of the dressmakers came to the rescue, and called Miss Veille away.
“What do you think now?” Mildred asked of the Judge, when they were alone.
“Think as I did before,” he replied. “We won’t go near the hag. We don’t want to know who you are.”