“God help us,” she cried, “what’s wrong now?”
Without a word of reply, Emily led the way into the bedchamber which had been the scene of Miss Letitia’s death. Mrs. Ellmother hesitated on the threshold.
“Why do you bring me in here?” she asked.
“Why did you try to keep me out?” Emily answered.
“When did I try to keep you out, miss?”
“When I came home from school, to nurse my aunt. Ah, you remember now! Is it true—I ask you here, where your old mistress died—is it true that my aunt deceived me about my father’s death? And that you knew it?”
There was dead silence. Mrs. Ellmother trembled horribly—her lips dropped apart—her eyes wandered round the room with a stare of idiotic terror. “Is it her ghost tells you that?” she whispered. “Where is her ghost? The room whirls round and round, miss—and the air sings in my ears.”
Emily sprang forward to support her. She staggered to a chair, and lifted her great bony hands in wild entreaty. “Don’t frighten me,” she said. “Stand back.”
Emily obeyed her. She dashed the cold sweat off her forehead. “You were talking about your father’s death just now,” she burst out, in desperate defiant tones. “Well! we know it and we are sorry for it—your father died suddenly.”
“My father died murdered in the inn at Zeeland! All the long way to London, I have tried to doubt it. Oh, me, I know it now!”