“Who brought this? and when did, it come?”

“Last night, only I couldn’t find you.  It was nigh dropping into Miss Gascoigne’s hands, and a pretty mess that would have been.  And I warn you—­you had better mind what you are about—­Miss Susan Bennett told me all about it; and a nice little story it is, too, for a married lady.  And Miss Gascoigne has scented it out, I’ll be bound and if Dr. Grey once gets hold of it—­”

“Stop!” said Christian, firmly, though she felt her very lips turning white.  “You are under some extraordinary delusion.  There is nothing to be got hold of.  Take this letter to my husband’s study—­it is his affair.  I have no communications whatever with Sir Edwin Uniacke.”

Phillis looked utterly amazed.  Though her mistress did not speak another word, there was something in her manner—­her perfect, quiet conviction of innocence, self-asserted, though without any open self-defense, which struck the woman more than any amount of anger would have done.

“If I’ve made a mistake, I’m sure I beg your pardon, ma’am,” began she quite humbly.

“What for?  Except for receiving and bringing to me privately a letter which should have been left with Barker at the door, it being Barker’s business, and not yours.  Remember that another time.  Now take the letter to the study, and go.”

Phillis hesitated.  She looked again and again at that calm, proud, innocent lady, whom she had so wickedly misjudged and maligned, how far and how fatally her own conscience alone could tell.  And Phillis knew what innocence was, for, poor woman, she had known what it was not.  Malice also she knew; and judging her mistress by herself, she trembled.

“If you’re going to bear spite against me for this, I’d best give warning at once, Mrs. Grey—­only it would nigh break my heart to leave the children.”

“I have no wish for you to leave the children, and I never bear spite against anybody.  Life is not long enough for it,” added Mrs. Grey, sighing.  Then, with a sudden impulse, if by any means she could smooth matters and win a little household peace, “I desire to be a good mistress to you, Phillis; why should you not be a good servant to me?  You love the children; you are to them a most faithful nurse; why can not you believe that I shall be a faithful mother?  Let us turn over a new leaf, and begin again.”

She held out her hand, and Phillis took it; looked hard in her mistress’s face—­the kind, friendly face, that was not ashamed to be a friend even to a poor servant; then, with something very like a sob, she turned and ran out of the room.

But when she was gone, Christian sat down exhausted.  With a desperate self-control she had wrenched herself out of Phillis’s power, she had saved herself and her husband from the suspicion that it was possible Dr. Grey’s wife could receive, or give occasion to receive, a secret letter, a love-letter, from any man; but when the effort was over she broke down.  Convulsive sobs, one after the other, shook her, until she felt as if her very life were departing.  And in the midst of this agony appeared—­Miss Gascoigne.