"Hold your tongue."
Mrs. Tolhurst was offended; she thought her mistress's behaviour unwarranted either by modesty or indignation. There were burning tears in Joanna's eyes as she flung herself out of the room. She was blind as she went down the passage, twisting her apron furiously in her hands.
"Martha Tilden!" she called—"Martha Tilden!"
"Oh," she thought in her heart, "I raised his wages so's he could marry her—for months this has been going on ... the field down by Beggar's Bush ... Oh, I could kill her!" Then shouting into the yard—"Martha Tilden! Martha Tilden!"
"I'm coming, Miss Joanna," Martha's soft drawly voice increased her bitterness; her own, compared with it, sounded harsh, empty, inexperienced. Martha's voice was full of the secrets of love—the secrets of Dick Socknersh's love.
"Come into the dairy," she said hoarsely.
Martha came and stood before her. She evidently knew what was ahead, for she looked pale and a little scared, and yet she had about her a strange air of confidence ... though not so strange, after all, since she carried Dick Socknersh's child, and her memory was full of his caresses and the secrets of his love ... thus bravely could Joanna herself have faced an angry world....
"You leave my service at once," she said.
Martha began to cry.
"You know what for?"