"Do not misunderstand me,"—as the kind old hand stroked hers gently,—"I could not bear you to do that. I am weak, I do not complain, I am young and healthy, and a little hardness will not hurt me; but it is for Emmie I fear. Caleb," in an almost inaudible voice, "what they make me suffer through her!"
"I know it, I know it," rubbing up his grey hair restlessly.
"She is getting thinner every day, and losing appetite, and there is a nervous look in her eyes that I do not like. Miss Titheridge will not see it; I think sometimes she dislikes Emmie; she and Fraulein are harder on her than ever."
"There now, there now, poor lambs, poor orphaned lambs," broke in the compassionate Caleb.
"They are driving me to the verge of distraction, and they know it," continued Queenie, in the same strange, suppressed voice; "things cannot go on like this much longer. Caleb, I shall frighten you, but I have made up my mind to do something desperate, and to do it at once: I mean to go to Mr. Calcott."
Caleb's hands dropped on his knees, and his eyes grew round and fixed. "Miss Queenie!" he gasped at length.
"I shall go to him," repeated the young girl quietly, "and tell him about Emmie."
"But—but he will never see you, my dear young lady; you must be mad or dreaming. See Mr. Calcott! it is a preposterous idea—preposterous—pre—."
"Hush! when have you ever known me fail in anything I have undertaken? It is a waste of words to try and dissuade me. All last night I lay thinking it out, till my brain reeled. I may do no good; heaven knows what manner of man I have to deal with, but all the same I will speak to him, face to face, and tell him what is in my heart."
"Heaven preserve the young creature, for she is certainly daft!" groaned Caleb; and here he positively wrung his hands. "The lamb in the lion's den, that is what it will be. Miss Queenie, dear," he said, coaxingly, "I am thirty or forty years older than you; be guided by an old friend, and put this thought out of your head."