When the deed was accomplished and the room suddenly bright with soft illumination, Mrs. Maldon murmured—­

“That’s better!”

She was sitting in her arm-chair by the glitteringly set table, which, instead of being in the centre of the floor under the gas, had a place near the bow-window—­advantageous in the murky daytime of the Five Towns, and inconvenient at night.  The table might well have been shifted at night to a better position in regard to the gas.  But it never was.  Somehow for Mrs. Maldon the carpet was solid concrete, and the legs of the table immovably embedded therein.

Rachel, gentle-footed, kicked the footstool away to its lair under the table, and simultaneously extinguished the taper, which she dropped with a scarce audible click into a vase on the mantelpiece.  Then she put the cover on the tube with another faintest click, restored the tube to its drawer with a rather louder click, and finally, with a click still louder, pushed the drawer home.  All these slight sounds were familiar to Mrs. Maldon; they were part of her regular night life, part of an unconsciously loved ritual, and they contributed in their degree to her placid happiness.

“Now the blinds, my dear!” said she.

The exhortation was ill-considered, and Rachel controlled a gesture of amicable impatience.  For she had not paused after closing the drawer; she was already on her way across the room to the window when Mrs. Maldon said, “Now the blinds, my dear!” The fact was that Mrs. Maldon measured the time between the lighting of gas and the drawing down of blinds by tenths of a second—­such was her fear lest in that sinister interval the whole prying town might magically gather in the street outside and peer into the secrets of her inculpable existence.

II

When the blinds and curtains had been arranged for privacy, Mrs. Maldon sighed securely and picked up her crocheting.  Rachel rested her hands on the table, which was laid for a supper for four, and asked in a firm, frank voice whether there was anything else.

“Because, if not,” Rachel added, “I’ll just take off my pinafore and wash my hands.”

Mrs. Maldon looked up benevolently and nodded in quick agreement.  It was such apparently trifling gestures, eager and generous, that endeared the old lady to Rachel, giving her the priceless sensation of being esteemed and beloved.  Her gaze lingered on her aged employer with affection and with profound respect.  Mrs. Maldon made a striking, tall, slim figure, sitting erect in tight black, with the right side of her long, prominent nose in the full gaslight and the other heavily shadowed.  Her hair was absolutely black at over seventy; her eyes were black and glowing, and she could read and do coarse crocheting without spectacles.  All her skin, especially round about the eyes, was yellowish brown and very deeply wrinkled indeed; a