’I’ve been in your service fifteen years,’ she said, in a voice as vibrating as the muscles of her countenance. ’I’ve been treated by you no better than a dog, and I’ve followed you, and been true to you as a dog. Whenever did I take anything from you before? I’ve watched for you against the mice that eat the corn, watched like an owl!’ ’You acknowledge this?’ ’What is the good of denying it? Let me go, for my fifteen years’ faithful duty.’ ’No, no,’ said Taverner with a hard voice. ’Not yet; I’ve something more to ask. Honor Luxmore, what did you say when you took my bowl of broth from me?’ Honor drew back. ’I spoke too hastily,’ she said. ’I spoke without knowing.’ ’You said that the bowl contained poison. Why did you say that?’ ’It was fancy. Let me throw the broth away. I am sure of nothing.’ Unlike her usual decision, Honor was now doubtful what to say and do. ’I insist on knowing. I made a charge against your brother, and it has proved false, because it has been gone into. You have made a charge——’ ’I have charged no one.’ ’You have said that this bowl’—he took it from the shelf—’is poisoned. Why did you say that? No one touched it, no one mixed it, but Mrs. Veale. Therefore, when you said it was poisoned, you charged her with a dreadful crime; you charged her, that is, with an attempted crime.’ ’I heard my sister say that she saw a yellow packet of rat-poison in the china dog on the shelf in the kitchen,’ said Honor nervously, ’which—I do not mean the dog—I mean the poison, which Mrs. Veale had bought at the Revel, and when I was in the passage just now I saw Mrs. Veale put the contents of this packet into the broth she was stirring on the fire, before pouring it out into the basin, in which it now is. But,’ continued Honor, drawing a long breath, ’but Kate is not very accurate; she sometimes thinks she sees a thing when she has only imagined it, and she talks at random at times, just because she likes to talk.’ ’It was mace,’ said Mrs. Veale. ’Follow me,’ ordered Taverner Langford, taking the basin between his hands, and going to the door. ’Let her go. She will follow me.’ ’I’ve followed at your heel as a dog these fifteen years,’ muttered Mrs. Veale, ’and now you know I must follow till you kick me away.’ Charles, however, would not relinquish his hold. ’Don’t let her escape,’ entreated Charles; ’she’s a bad un, and ought to be brought to justice for falsely charging me.’ ’Open the door, will you?’ said Taverner roughly. ’Mrs. Veale, follow me into the harness-room’—this was the room on the other side of the passage, the room made out of the entrance hall. Charles drew the woman through the door, and did not relax his hold till he had thrust her into the apartment where Langford wished to speak to her alone.