“What is the matter with you now?” she asks him.

“Don’t you think any more,” returns Mr. Bucket with admonitory finger, “of throwing yourself out of window.  That’s what’s the matter with me.  Come!  Just take my arm.  You needn’t get up; I’ll sit down by you.  Now take my arm, will you?  I’m a married man, you know; you’re acquainted with my wife.  Just take my arm.”

Vainly endeavouring to moisten those dry lips, with a painful sound she struggles with herself and complies.

“Now we’re all right again.  Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this case could never have been the case it is but for Mrs. Bucket, who is a woman in fifty thousand—­in a hundred and fifty thousand!  To throw this young woman off her guard, I have never set foot in our house since, though I’ve communicated with Mrs. Bucket in the baker’s loaves and in the milk as often as required.  My whispered words to Mrs. Bucket when she had the sheet in her mouth were, ’My dear, can you throw her off continually with natural accounts of my suspicions against George, and this, and that, and t’other?  Can you do without rest and keep watch upon her night and day?  Can you undertake to say, ’She shall do nothing without my knowledge, she shall be my prisoner without suspecting it, she shall no more escape from me than from death, and her life shall be my life, and her soul my soul, till I have got her, if she did this murder?’ Mrs. Bucket says to me, as well as she could speak on account of the sheet, ‘Bucket, I can!’ And she has acted up to it glorious!”

“Lies!” mademoiselle interposes.  “All lies, my friend!”

“Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, how did my calculations come out under these circumstances?  When I calculated that this impetuous young woman would overdo it in new directions, was I wrong or right?  I was right.  What does she try to do?  Don’t let it give you a turn?  To throw the murder on her ladyship.”

Sir Leicester rises from his chair and staggers down again.

“And she got encouragement in it from hearing that I was always here, which was done a-purpose.  Now, open that pocket-book of mine, Sir Leicester Dedlock, if I may take the liberty of throwing it towards you, and look at the letters sent to me, each with the two words ‘Lady Dedlock’ in it.  Open the one directed to yourself, which I stopped this very morning, and read the three words ’Lady Dedlock, Murderess’ in it.  These letters have been falling about like a shower of lady-birds.  What do you say now to Mrs. Bucket, from her spy-place having seen them all ’written by this young woman?  What do you say to Mrs. Bucket having, within this half-hour, secured the corresponding ink and paper, fellow half-sheets and what not?  What do you say to Mrs. Bucket having watched the posting of ’em every one by this young woman, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet?” Mr. Bucket asks, triumphant in his admiration of his lady’s genius.