Maggie had spoken to her once or twice and the girl had seemed grateful, smiling in a kind of dark, tearful way under her untidy hair. Maggie believed that she would help her; of course the girl would get into trouble were she discovered, and dismissal would certainly follow, but it was clear enough that she would not in any case be under Martha's government very long. Martha never kept kitchen-maids for more than a month at a time. She sat down at once and wrote her first letter, sitting on her bed. DARLING MARTIN--There has been an explosion here. The aunts have told me to give you up. I could not promise them that I would not see you and so I am a prisoner here until I leave them altogether. I won't leave them until after the New Year, partly because I gave a promise and partly because it would make more trouble for you if I were turned out just now. I can't leave the house at all unless I am with one of them, so I am going to try and send the letters by the kitchen-maid here who goes home every day, and she will fetch yours when she posts mine. I'll give her a note to tell the post people that she is to have them. Martin, dear, try and write every day, even if it's only the shortest line, because it is dreadful to be shut up all day, and I think of you all the time and wonder how you are. Don't be unhappy, Martin--that's the one thing I couldn't bear. If you're not, I'm not. There's no reason to be unhappy about me. I'm very cheerful indeed if I know that you are all right. You are all right, aren't you? I do want to know what happened when you got home. I quite understand that the one thing you must do now is to keep your father well and not let anything trouble him. If the thought of me troubles him, then tell him that you are thinking of nothing but him now and how to make him happy. But don't let them change your feeling for me. You know me better than any of them do and I am just as you know me, every bit. The aunts are very angry because they say I deceived them, but they haven't any right to tell me who I shall love, have they? No one has. I am myself and nobody's ever cared for me except you--and Uncle Mathew, so I don't see why I should think of anybody. The aunts never cared for me really--only to make me religious. But, Martin, never forget I love you so much I can never change. I'm not one who changes, and although I'm young now I shall be just the same when I'm old. I have the ring and I look at it all the time. I like to think you have the locket. Please write, dear Martin, or I'll find it very difficult to stay quiet here, and I know I ought to stay quiet for your sake. Your loving, MAGGIE. She put it in an envelope, wrote the address as he had told her, and then set out to find Jane. It was four o'clock in the afternoon now and the house, on this winter's day, was dark and dim.