Charity had not moved while he spoke. She stood with her head thrown
back against the window-frame, her arms hanging against her sides, and
her hands so tightly clenched that she felt, without knowing what hurt
her, the sharp edge of her nails against her palms.

Of all Mr. Royall had said she had retained only the phrase: "He told
Miss Hatchard the books were in bad shape." What did she care for the
other charges against her? Malice or truth, she despised them as she
despised her detractors. But that the stranger to whom she had felt
herself so mysteriously drawn should have betrayed her! That at the
very moment when she had fled up the hillside to think of him more
deliciously he should have been hastening home to denounce her
short-comings! She remembered how, in the darkness of her room, she had
covered her face to press his imagined kiss closer; and her heart raged
against him for the liberty he had not taken.

"Well, I'll go," she said suddenly. "I'll go right off."

"Go where?" She heard the startled note in Mr. Royall's voice.

"Why, out of their old library: straight out, and never set foot in
it again. They needn't think I'm going to wait round and let them say
they've discharged me!"

"Charity--Charity Royall, you listen----" he began, getting heavily out
of his chair; but she waved him aside, and walked out of the room.

Upstairs she took the library key from the place where she always hid it
under her pincushion--who said she wasn't careful?--put on her hat, and
swept down again and out into the street. If Mr. Royall heard her go