She lay silent for a time, with her finger between the pages of the note-book. Parker waited, trembling, not daring to speak until she was spoken to. "Take your book," said Mrs. Vane at last, "and be careful. No, you need, not go into ecstasies"--seeing from Parker's clasped hands that she was about to utter a word of gratitude. "I shall keep you no longer than you are useful to me--do you understand? Go on following Miss Vane; I want to know whom she sees, where she goes, what she does--if possible, what she talks about. Does she get letters--letters, I mean beside those that come in the post-bag?" "I don't know, ma'am." "Make it your business to know, then. You can go;" and Flossy turned away her face, so as not to see Parker's rather blundering exit. "The woman is a fool," she said to herself contemptuously, when Parker had gone; "but I think she is--so far--a faithful fool. These women who have made a muddle of their lives are admirable tools; they are always so afraid of being found out;" and Flossy smiled cynically, although at the same moment she was conscious that she shared the peculiarity of the woman of whom she spoke--she also was afraid of being found out. She had come across Parker before her marriage, when she was in Scotland. The woman had then been detected in theft and in an intrigue with one of the grooms, and had been ignominiously dismissed from service; but Flossy had chosen to seek her out and befriend her--not from any charitable motive, but because she saw in the discarded maid a person whom it might be useful to have at beck and call. Parker's bedridden mother was dependent upon her; and her one fear in life was that this mother should get to know her true story and be deprived of support. Upon this fear Mrs. Vane traded very skilfully; and, having installed Parker in the place of lady's-maid to herself and her husband's niece, she obtained accurate information concerning Enid's movements and actions, supplied from a source which Enid never even suspected.