“Don’t!” said she sharply. “At least, wait one moment--give me a hearing. I’ll stay here--so. Mr. Rayner’ll be here in a minute; he won’t leave you for long,” said she, in a disagreeable voice. “I can’t hurt you. I didn’t mean to hurt you last night; and I didn’t want to steal your letter either. What should I want to steal a bit of paper for? You see I know what it is. I only wanted to read it. I’m of a curious disposition, and I don’t stick at much to find out what I want to know--if it’s only trifles. The stuff on that handkerchief wouldn’t have hurt you, only made you sleep a little sounder, so as I could take the letter. I’d have put it back. I’m sorry I frightened you. I’ve come to ask you to forgive me.” She said it in a dry hard tone, not as if she really repented her cruel action a bit. “No, no; I can’t forgive you--at least not yet,” I said incoherently. “It wasn’t only wanting to steal my letter and to stupefy me, but the way you looked at me, the cruel way--as if--as if you would have liked to kill me,” I said, growing more excited as I remembered the terrible glare of her eyes when she sprang at me the second time. “I can’t forget it--oh, I can’t forget it! And you did something worse than that; you told the cook and Jane that Mr. Rayner was coming up to my room! Oh, that was wicked of you, for you knew it wasn’t true!” “That’s that little tattling Jane, I know!” said Sarah vixenishly. “I never said such a thing at all; but she likes to make a story up of everything she hears. You know what a chatterbox she is, miss.” I did know it; but I did not think Jane was likely to have altered Sarah’s story much. I was silent for a minute. Sarah began again in a different tone. “You’re very hard upon a poor servant, Miss Christie, and it isn’t generous of you. I don’t deny that I was jealous of you, and that I wanted to prove to Mr. Rayner that you had letters on the sly from a young gentleman. There now--I’ve made a clean breast of it! But don’t it seem hard that I, who’ve served him and his well for nigh seven years, should have to go just at the word of a young lady who hasn’t been here two months?” “It isn’t at my word, Sarah; I have had nothing to do with it.” “Nothing to do with it? Can you deny that you dislike me?” “I should never have disliked you if you had not over and over again shown that you hated me, and that it was distasteful to you even to have to serve me. And, as to your going away, I heard about it only this morning through asking Jane why she was doing my room.” I blushed as I said this; but I could not confess to Sarah that the first mention I had heard of her departure was when I was listening outside the door of this very room on the night before. “Then you don’t want me to go away?” “It doesn’t matter to me whether you go or stay, as I have packed my boxes, and am going back to London myself this very afternoon.” Sarah stared. Then she gave a disagreeable laugh. “You won’t go,” said she.