“I waited in that inner room—­knowing my own violent temper, and not trusting myself to see you, after what I had heard—­I waited in that inner room, trembling lest the servant should tell you of my visit before I could find an opportunity of leaving the house.  No such misfortune happened.  The servant, no doubt, heard the voices upstairs, and supposed that we had met each other in the passage.  I don’t know how long or how short a time it was before you left the room to go and take off your bonnet—­you went, and your friend went with you.  I raised the long window softly, and stepped into the back garden.  The way by which you returned to the house was the way by which I left it.  No blame attaches to the servant.  As usual, where I am concerned, nobody is to blame but me.

“Time enough has passed now to quiet my mind a little.  You know how strong I am?  You remember how I used to fight against all my illnesses when I was a child?  Now I am a woman, I fight against my miseries in the same way.  Don’t pity me, Miss Garth!  Don’t pity me!

“I have no harsh feeling against Norah.  The hope I had of seeing her is a hope taken from me; the consolation I had in writing to her is a consolation denied me for the future.  I am cut to the heart; but I have no angry feeling toward my sister.  She means well, poor soul—­I dare say she means well.  It would distress her, if she knew what has happened.  Don’t tell her.  Conceal my visit, and burn my letter.

“A last word to yourself and I have done: 

“If I rightly understand my present situation, your spies are still searching for me to just as little purpose as they searched at York.  Dismiss them—­you are wasting your money to no purpose.  If you discovered me to-morrow, what could you do?  My position has altered.  I am no longer the poor outcast girl, the vagabond public performer, whom you once hunted after.  I have done what I told you I would do—­I have made the general sense of propriety my accomplice this time.  Do you know who I am?  I am a respectable married woman, accountable for my actions to nobody under heaven but my husband.  I have got a place in the world, and a name in the world, at last.  Even the law, which is the friend of all you respectable people, has recognized my existence, and has become my friend too!  The Archbishop of Canterbury gave me his license to be married, and the vicar of Aldborough performed the service.  If I found your spies following me in the street, and if I chose to claim protection from them, the law would acknowledge my claim.  You forget what wonders my wickedness has done for me.  It has made Nobody’s Child Somebody’s Wife.

“If you will give these considerations their due weight; if you will exert your excellent common sense, I have no fear of being obliged to appeal to my newly-found friend and protector—­the law.  You will feel, by this time, that you have meddled with me at last to some purpose.  I am estranged from Norah—­I am discovered by my husband—­I am defeated by Mrs. Lecount.  You have driven me to the last extremity; you have strengthened me to fight the battle of my life with the resolution which only a lost and friendless woman can feel.  Badly as your schemes have prospered, they have not proved totally useless after all!