"What are you thinking of?" I asked her. "A young girl like your
daughter nursing Me! You ought to have more regard for Susan's
good name!"

"I know what _you_ ought to do!" She made that strange reply with
a furtive look at me, half in anger, half in alarm.

"Go on," I said.

"Will you turn me out of your house for my impudence?" she asked.

"I will hear what you have to say to me. What ought I to do?"

"Marry Susan."

I heard the woman plainly--and yet, I declare, I doubted the
evidence of my senses.

"She's breaking her heart for you," Mrs. Rymer burst out. "She's
been in love with you since you first darkened our doors--and it
will end in the neighbors finding it out. I did my duty to her; I
tried to stop it; I tried to prevent you from seeing her, when
you went away. Too late; the mischief was done. When I see my
girl fading day by day--crying about you in secret, talking about
you in her dreams--I can't stand it; I must speak out. Oh, yes, I
know how far beneath you she is--the daughter of your uncle's
servant. But she's your equal, sir, in the sight of Heaven. My
lord's priest converted her only last year--and my Susan is as
good a Papist as yourself."