Meantime two or three of the servants had gathered on the landing at the sound of my husband's voice, and among them was the flinty housekeeper holding the Father's little bag, and she gave it back to him as he passed her.
Then, all being over, the woman came into my room, with an expression of victorious mischief in her eyes and said:
"Your ladyship had better have listened to them as knows, you see."
I was too benumbed by that cruel stroke to reply, but Price said enough for both of us.
"If them as knows," she said, "don't get out of this room inside two seconds they'll get their ugly faces slapped."
I thought I had reached the end of my power of endurance, and that night, before going to bed, while my maid was taking down my hair, and I was thinking of Martin and asking myself if I should put up with my husband's brutalities any longer, I heard her say:
"If I were a lady married to the wrong man, I'd have the right one if I had to go through the divorce court for him."
Now that was so exactly the thought that was running riot in my own tormented mind, that I flew at her like a wild cat, asking her how she dared to say anything so abominably wicked, and telling her to take her notice there and then.
But hardly had she left the room, when my heart was in my mouth again, and I was trembling with fear lest she should take me at my word and then the last of my friends would be gone.