Ella, looking up from her work, stared at the neat brown hair and the neat white cap of the young woman, bending over hers, as if she were asking some solution to the words.
"Pass-keys?" she repeated. "What were they?"
"Keys that would open the green baize doors which the Squire had put up to shut out his rooms from the rest of the house, and which were always kept locked night and day, ma'am," replied Priscilla.
"And who kept these pass-keys?"
"There were four of them, ma'am," Priscilla said, "and four people had them, one each. Aaron Stone and poor Mr. Hubert, who is just gone; Dr. Jago had one, and the nurse."
Ella paused. "Of what nurse do you speak? My uncle never had a nurse."
"Indeed he had, Miss Ella. It was a Mrs. Dexter: sent for from London by Dr. Jago."
A nurse from London! This was the first time Miss Winter had heard of the existence of such a person at the Hall. The revelation was not palatable to her.
"How long was this Mrs. Dexter at the Hall--do you know, Priscilla?"
"It was a good while, ma'am; though I can't say exactly. I think she was here before Christmas--I am next to sure of it. Why yes--I remember now," quickly added the young woman; "she came in November. I was up here one wet November day; and while I was drying my petticoats at the kitchen fire, Phemie whispered to me that she thought the master must be worse, for they had got a London nurse in the house."