"Ah did n’t say it was onny un," Miss Morland declared, repudiating the olive branch. "Ah don’t want ye to look for owt. Ah ’ll do wi’oot petticawt sin’ ah ’m not fit to be trusted. Ay, an’ ye need n’t trust me. Ah don’t trust you. Ah know very well ye ’re agate o’ seummut ye ’d for shame to be fun’ [found] out in. Where ’s waiter ye washed i’ this mornin’ before dinner? An’ ’oo’s been liggin’ [lying] o’ t’ bed? Cat, ah s’d think. Folks is n’t blind if ye think they are.... Noo, get yersen washed agen. Ah ’m about tired o’ ye." At which Miss Morland slammed to the drawer peremptorily with her knee, and flounced past Pam in a fine show of injured pride and indignation. And Pam never questioned the justice of her wrath. Emma was right to be angry. Pam had treated her shamefully, shamefully, shamefully. Oh, never did she think in the hours of her happiness that she would ever have come to treat Emma like this. To suspect her; to approach upon her by stealth; to use harsh words to her; to offend her so needlessly and so cruelly. All the same, as soon as the feet of the postmaster’s daughter had departed downstairs, telling the tale of their indignation loudly to every step on the way and banging it into the door at the bottom, the girl dropped on her knees, opened the drawer anew, and commenced to examine the depth and nature of Emma’s exploration. Heart, soul, and body, suspicion now was eating her up piecemeal. With the lapse of her own trust she trusted nobody. Carefully she turned up the articles one by one, to see how far signs of recent disturbance extended. Thank goodness, they were mainly at the top. She sent her wriggling right arm to that furthermost corner at the bottom of the drawer, and the letter was there; there (relief and reawakened misery) flat as she had laid it. But this incident had shaken Pam’s nerve. Her faith in the room was shattered, and in agony of spirit she cast her eyes about on all sides of her to decide where now she could best deposit this horrid possession. Thoughts of sewing it into a little flannel band and wearing it across her breast occurred to her. But all sorts of dreadful things might happen. She might fall; she might faint; some sudden accident might overtake her; she might drop down dead even, or dying; willing hands might tear open her dress-body and exhume this frightful secret from its shallow grave. To such an extent did she foresee disaster of this sort, that the mere wearing of the letter seemed a courting of it. It was like shaking her fist in the face of Providence.