Her smoldering hatred of Pamela had taken tangible form. She wasn’t clever; she knew not the meaning of finesse nor the nature of conspiracy. It had never occurred to her that she might get rid of Pamela by skillful appeal to Jethro’s dearest emotions. That was not her way. Her way was more rough and ready, more grewsomely certain than that. Pamela must be got rid of in the usual manner. There were plenty of precedents on the farm. A knife was the only solution--knife, or a trap, or a quick twist of the neck. But you could not twist a woman’s neck; neither could you pin her in a gin. A knife--that was the only way. She condemned Pamela in exactly the same spirit that she would have condemned an unprofitable animal. She arrived at the decision with stolidity. Her nerve had shaken a little at the actual act--that was all: it needed a man to do the killing properly--it wasn’t woman’s work on the farm. Pests must be exterminated; that was the simplest rule of domestic economy. As she went along the narrow, silent passage and up the stairs to her own room everything was strangely threatening. The candle was burning short and leaping desperately in the stick. All the familiar things, things of common life, reassuring things by day, were weird now with night and sleep. She was afraid. She didn’t know why: she fought the feeling. She had earned the right to repose. She shut her bedroom door, shooting the bolt convulsively. It was the first time in her life that she had locked herself in at night. She undressed quickly, the candle shooting up spasmodically before it died. She laid her clothes, precisely folded, on the particular chair. She took the velvet band from her head, parted her poor wisps of hair into even strands, and twisted each strand into a wisp of rag. She peeled herself of the various flannel wrappings which increasing rheumatism demanded. Then she took off her stockings and slipped on her coarse nightgown and got into bed, drawing the belated last leg in with a frightened jerk. CHAPTER XXI. THE sun, peering through the carelessly-drawn curtain and falling across her eyes, awakened Pamela next morning. She jumped briskly to the floor from the high, enshrouded bed. She realized, with a joyful thrill, that this was not London--not Beaufort Street. She must write to Barbara, who had been kind; but the bread of dependence, when a woman hands it, is never sweet. When she was half dressed she threw back the casement and occasionally bobbed out her head to look at the garden. Beneath her stretched the closely-shaven, vividly green grass, the accurately-cut beds, the long, flower-tangled borders. She saw with satisfaction, with a thrill of gratitude to Jethro, that everything had been kept in exactly the order that she wished.