'av brought you quaite safe--the lady she seem so nice and quaite, and we
should 'av been safe with her--there would 'av been nothing absolutely; but
instead you would scream and pooshe, and so they grow quite wild, and all
the impertinence and violence follow of course; and that a poor Bill--all
his beating and danger to his life it is cause entairely by you.'

And she spoke with more real virulence than that kind of upbraiding
generally exhibits.

'The beast!' exclaimed Mrs. Rusk, when she, I, and Mary Quince were in my
room together, 'with all her crying and praying, I'd like to know as much
as she does, maybe, about them rascals. There never was sich like about the
place, long as I remember it, till she came to Knowl, old witch! with them
unmerciful big bones of hers, and her great bald head, grinning here, and
crying there, and her nose everywhere. The old French hypocrite!'

Mary Quince threw in an observation, and I believe Mrs. Rusk rejoined, but
I heard neither. For whether the housekeeper spoke with reflection or not,
what she said affected me strangely. Through the smallest aperture, for
a moment, I had had a peep into Pandemonium. Were not peculiarities of
Madame's demeanour and advice during the adventure partly accounted for by
the suggestion? Could the proposed excursion to Church Scarsdale have had
any purpose of the same sort? What was proposed? How was Madame interested
in it? Were such immeasurable treason and hypocrisy possible? I could not
explain nor quite believe in the shapeless suspicion that with these light
and bitter words of the old housekeeper had stolen so horribly into my
mind.

After Mrs. Rusk was gone I awoke from my dismal abstraction with something
like a moan and a shudder, with a dreadful sense of danger.