She was close upon Emma when the latter suddenly saw her and straightened herself with the click of a clasped knife. “Eh, but you give me a fright!” she began, gaspingly, and then stopped. An extraordinary change came over her as her eyes fastened themselves on Mrs. Clapham’s bonnet and gown. Her arms dropped to her sides as if torn away by some unseen hand. Her mouth opened, her jaw dropped ... her eyes went dead, her face white.... Mrs. Clapham was more frightened than ever when she saw Emma looking like that. “There’s nowt wrong, is there?” she cried at her sharply, shaking with fear. “What’s making you look so strange, Emma? Is owt wrong with Martha Jane?” But the amazing transformation which had come upon Mrs. Catterall had passed even before she had finished. The dull colour came back into Emma’s face and the watchful yet blank look into her eyes. Her arms came up slowly and folded themselves to their usual place. And then, as Mrs. Clapham still stood panting and shaking, she started her slow smile.... “I don’t know as _you’d_ call it wrong,” she answered her gently, in her expressionless tones, “though I wasn’t brought up myself to consider it right. But there, I reckon everyone knows their own business best,” she went on, moving to one side. “Anyway, as you’re here, you’ll happen look for yourself....” CHAPTER III Feeling slightly ashamed of herself, but too frightened and curious to refrain, the charwoman stepped forward and took Emma’s place. The hill, rising beside the window, seemed to surge along its sill as a rising wave surges along the bows of a vessel, and she had to bend almost double to see through the dirty panes. Even then she could discern nothing at first because of the brightness without, but gradually, as she stared, the figure of Martha Jane came into being. She was seated beside the table, with her head laid on her arms, and her flushed face, twisted towards them, showed her sunk in a sodden sleep. Her hair was coming down, her blouse had slipped up, and she had lost a shoe; while the lace collar which she had robbed of its pin for little Miss Baines, was hanging airily down her back. Within reach of her outstretched hands stood a bottle without a cork, from which they seemed only this moment to have slipped away.... Mrs. Clapham clicked her tongue between her teeth when she saw that bottle. There could be no mistake about Martha Jane.... “The right sort for almshouses, I _don’t_ think!” Emma was saying in smug tones behind the charwoman’s back. “Seems to me mighty queer they should ever have thought her in the running at all; but there, I suppose they reckon they know their own business best....” Mrs. Clapham straightened herself rather painfully, and looked at her with dismay.