“You can’t,” said Miss Protheroe. “The doors are locked, the shutters are locked and barred, and you stay here for as long as I choose to keep you. You are my guests—see? And I’ve waited for you, for forty years. I shan’t let you go now.”
They heard her words; they stared at one another with a sudden horror leaping in their eyes.
XII
Bertie’s wife began to weep, loudly and helplessly.
“Oh, let me get out of this,” she cried; “why did we ever come? Bertie, it was your fault. Oh, why didn’t you leave her alone? the wicked, mad woman? Think of the noises in the night. The house haunted, and Alice mad! For God’s sake let’s clear out.”
“She’s in league with the Devil,” said Emily in the black moustache.
They had all forgotten, by now, about the appearance they variously presented, and all stared at each other fearfully, grotesque, ridiculous, but unheeding.
“Christmas morning!” cried Bertie’s wife, and wept more bitterly than before.
“Here, I’ve nothing to do with this—I never turned you out,” said Fred to Lydia, speaking for the first time.
“You haven’t given me your offertory yet,” said Lydia. “Now then,” she said, “out with it! Bertie, you used to be a churchwarden at home; you take round the plate.”