"I don't want it--the moon makes light enough for me. I have something to say to you. If I don't tell it, I shall go mad. You must share it with me, Aunt Fanny. You and I must both know it, and we must keep it to ourselves forever and ever and ever." "Lor, child! what are you talking about?" "I'll soon tell you. Let me kneel close to you. Hold my hand. I never felt so frightened in all my life before." "Out with it, Hetty, whatever it is." "Aunt, before I say a word, you've got to make me a promise." "What's that?" "You won't tell a soul what I am going to say to you." "I hate making promises of that sort, Hetty." "Never mind whether you hate it or not. Promise or I shall go mad." "Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Armitage, "why should a poor woman be bothered in this way, and you neither kith nor kin to me. Don't you forget that it's Armitage you belong to. You've no blood of mine, thank goodness, in your veins." "What does that matter. You're a woman, and I'm another. I'm just in the most awful position a girl could be in. But whatever happens, I'll be true to him. Yes, Aunt Fanny, I'll be true to him. I'm nothing to him, no more than if I were a weed, but I love him madly, deeply, desperately. He is all the world to me. He is my master, and I am his slave. Of course I'm nothing to him, but he's everything to me, and he shan't die. Aunt Fanny, you and I have got to be true to him. We must share the thing together, for I can't keep the secret by myself. You must share it with me, Aunt Fanny." Up to this point, Mrs. Armitage had regarded Hetty's words as merely those of a hysterical and over-wrought girl. Now, however, she began to perceive method in her madness. "Look here, child," she said, "if you've got anything to say, say it, and have done with it. I'm not blessed with over much patience, and I can't stand beating round the bush. If you have a secret, out with it, you silly thing. Oh, yes, of course I won't betray you. I expect it's just this, you've gone and done something you oughtn't to. Oh, what have I done to be blessed with a niece-in-law like you? "It's nothing of that sort, Aunt Fanny. It is this--I don't mind telling you now, now that you have promised not to betray me. Aunt Fanny, I was out last night--I saw the murder committed." Mrs. Armitage suppressed a sharp scream. "Heaven preserve us!" she said, in a choking voice. "Were you not in bed, you wicked girl?" "No, I was out. I had quarrelled with Mr. Frere in the parlor, and I thought I'd follow him and make it up. I went straight on to the Plain--I saw him running. I hid behind a furze bush and I saw the quarrel, and I heard the words--I saw the awful struggle, and I heard the blows. I heard the fall, too--and I saw the man who had killed Mr. Frere run away."