did. I insist! I insist!

At each repetition Mrs Plummer brought her hands together with quite a smart clap. Miss Arnott looked down at the excited little woman as if she was still divided between two moods.

"You insist? Mrs Plummer, aren't you--rather forgetting yourself?"

"Of course I am prepared for you to adopt that tone. You always adopt it when I ask you a question, and I am ready to leave the house this moment if you wish it; but I can only assure you that if you won't give me an answer you may have to give one to somebody else before very long."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean exactly what I say. Won't you see?"

"I can see that you are in a state of excitement which is not warranted by anything I understand."

It was odd what a disinclination the elder lady showed to meet the young one's eyes. She moved hither and thither, as if possessed by a spirit of restlessness; but, though Miss Arnott kept her gaze fixed on her unfalteringly wherever she went, she herself never glanced in the girl's direction.

"Excited! I can't help being excited! How you can keep so cool is what I don't know! Everyone is pointing a finger and saying that you were out in the woods at the very time that--that wretched man was--was being murdered"--Mrs Plummer cast furtive looks about her as if the deed was being enacted that very moment before her eyes--"and asking where you were and what you were doing all alone in the woods at that hour, and how it was that you knew nothing at all of what was taking place, possibly quite close by you; and you let them ask, and say and do nothing to stop their tongues; and if they are not stopped heaven only knows where they'll lead them. My dear, won't you tell me where you went? and what it was that you were doing?"

"No, Mrs Plummer, I won't--so now your question is answered. And as I have some letters to write may I ask you to leave me?"

Mrs Plummer did glance at Miss Arnott for one moment; but for only one. Then, as if she did not dare to trust herself to speak again, she hurried from the room. Left alone, the young lady indulged in some possibly ironical comments on her companion's deportment.

"Really, to judge from Mrs Plummer's behaviour, one would imagine that this business worried her more than it does me. If she doesn't exercise a little more self-control I shouldn't be surprised if it ends in making her actually ill."