Part 50 (1/2)
”No, no; I don't want to think so. It might have been an accident. The poor dog meant no harm; it was his way of fawning, that was all.”
”The beast meant no harm, but the man did. He is worse than any beast that ever was born; he is a cruel, cunning, selfish devil; and if I had been a man he should never have got off alive.”
”But are you sure?”
”Quite. I was upstairs, and saw it all.”
This was not true; she had seen nothing till her mistress screamed.
”Then--anything is fair against such a villain.”
”Of course it is.”
”Let me think.”
She leaned her head upon her hand, and that intelligent face of hers quite shone with hard thought.
At last, after long and intense thinking, she spoke.
”I'll teach you to be inhuman, Mr. Richard Ba.s.sett,” said she, slowly, and with a strange depth of resolution.
Then Mary Wells and she put their heads together in close discussion; but now Lady Ba.s.sett took the lead, and revealed to her astonished adviser extraordinary and astounding qualities.
They had driven her to bay, and that is a perilous game to play with such a woman.
Mary Wells found herself a child compared with her mistress, now that that lady was driven to put out all her powers.
The conversation lasted about two hours: in that time the whole campaign was settled.
CHAPTER XXVII.
MARY WELLS by order went down, in a loose morning wrapper her mistress had given her, and dined in the servants' hall. She was welcomed with a sort of shout, half ironical; and the chief butler said,
”Glad to see you come back to us, Miss Wells.”
”The same to you, sir,” said Mary, with more pertness than logic; ”which I'm only come to take leave, for to-morrow I go to London, on business.”
”La! what's the business, I wonder?” inquired a house-maid, irreverentially.
”Well, my business is not your business, Jane. However, if you want to know, I'm going to be married.”
”And none too soon,” whispered the kitchen-maid to a footman.
”Speak up, my dear,” said Mary. ”There's nothing more vulgarer than whispering in company.”
”I said, 'What will Bill Drake say to that?'”
”Bill Drake will say he was a goose not to make up his mind quicker.