“Don’t leave me!” she said. And again, with a shadow of the old imperiousness, “You are not to leave me! Do you hear? I will come with you. I——”
“You’ll do what you’re bid!” Bess answered. “Go and sit down!” And the savage glint in her eyes put a new fear into Henrietta.
She went to the settle, her limbs unsteady under her, her eyes glancing round for a chance of escape. Where was the woman of the house? Where was Tyson? Chiefest of all, where was Walterson? She saw no sign of any of them. And terrified to the heart, she sat shivering where the other had ordered her to sit.
Bess opened a side door which led to the dairy, a cold, flagged room, lower by a couple of steps than the kitchen. She took up a candle, one of five or six which were flaring on the table, and she beckoned to the two men to follow her. When they had done so, the one who had taken up the pistol still muttering and casting suspicious glances over his shoulder, she slammed to the door. But, either by accident, or with a view to intimidate her prisoner, she let it leap ajar again; so that much of the talk which followed reached Henrietta’s ears. It soon banished from the unhappy girl’s cheeks the blood which the gipsy lad’s stare of admiration had brought to them.
Lunt’s first word was an oath. “You know well enough,” he cried, “that we want no praters here! Why have you brought this fool here to peach on us?”
“Why?”
“Ay, why?” Lunt repeated. “In two days more we had all got clear, and nothing better managed!”
“And thanks to whom?” the girl retorted with energy. “Who has hidden you? Who has kept you? Who has done all for you? But there it is! Now my lad’s gone, and Thistlewood’s gone, you think all’s yours! And as much of yourselves as masterless dogs!”
“Stow it!”
“But I’ll not!” she retorted. “Whose house is this?”