"No, no, miss; it was in a butt they drowned the sexton. Here you stay; and its being Christmas Eve, you must rest and keep quiet. What with those old books and all, you have been burning the candle at both ends."
Early in the afternoon on finding that her patient was little better, my landlady went off to the chemist's to get me some physic; I could bear inactivity no longer, and rose and dressed. The fire was low, the room sluggish, when in the dusk, as I sat dismally brooding in my chair, the door opened, and a stranger came in with my tea. She was dressed in black, and was carrying a light. With that raised in one hand, and my tea-tray held between finger and thumb of the other, she looked at me with face a little sidelong. Her hair was dark above her clear pale skin, and drawn, without a fringe, smoothly over her brows. Her eyes were almost unnaturally light in colour. I looked at her in astonishment; she was new in my world. She put the tray on my table, poked the fire into a blaze, blew out her candle at a single puff from her pursed lips, and seating herself on the hearthrug, clasped her hands round her knees.
"Mother told me you were in bed, ill," she said, "I hope you are better."
I assured her in a voice scarcely above a whisper that I was quite well again.
She nestled her chin down and broke into a little laugh: "My! how you startled me!"
"Then it was you," I managed to say.
"Oh, yes; it was me, it was me." The words were uttered as if to herself. She stooped her cheek over her knees again, and smiled round at me. "I'm not telling," she added softly.
Her tone, her expression, filled me with confusion. "But please do not suppose," I began angrily, "that I am not my own mistress here. I have my own key——"
"Oh, yes, your own mistress," she interrupted suavely, "but you see that's just what I'm not. And the key! why, it's just envy that's gnawing at the roots. I've never, never in my life seen anything so queer." She suddenly raised her strange eyes on me. "What were you doing out there?"
A lie perched on my lip; but the wide, light eyes searched me through. "I went," said I, "to be in the woods—to see the stars"; then added in a rather pompous voice, "only the southern and eastern constellations are visible from this poky little window."