Her peremptory tone astonished Henrietta, who said neither Yes nor No, but stood staring. The landlady with little ceremony took leave for granted. She entered, went by the girl to the window, and dragging the curtains aside, let in the full light. The adventures of the night had left Henrietta pale. But at this her colour rose.
“What is it?” she repeated.
“You know best,” Mrs. Gilson answered with more than her usual curtness. “Deal of dirt and little profit, I’m afraid, like Brough March fair! It’s not enough to be a fool once, it seems! Though I’d have thought you’d paid pretty smartly for it. Smart enough to know better now, my lass!”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Henrietta faltered.
“You don’t?” Mrs. Gilson rejoined, and with her arms set akimbo she stared severely at the girl, who, in her night-clothes with her cloak thrown about her and her colour coming and going, looked both guilty and frightened. “I fancy your face knows, if you don’t. Where were you last night? Ay, after dark last night, madam? Where were you, I say?”
“After dark?” Henrietta stammered.
“Ay, after dark!” the landlady retorted. “That’s English, isn’t it? But never mind. Least said is soonest mended. Where are your shoes?”
“My shoes?”
Mrs. Gilson lost patience, or appeared to lose it.
“That is what I said,” she replied. “You give them to me, and then I’ll tell you why I want them. Ah!” catching sight of them and bending her stout form to lift them from the floor. “Now, if you want to know what is the matter, though I think you know as well as the miller knows who beats the meal sack—you come with me! There is no one on this landing. Come you, as you are, to the window at the other end. ‘And you’ll know fast enough, and why they want your shoes.”