They went into the larder and Mrs. Tolhurst began: 

“I hardly lik to say it to you, Miss Joanna, being a single spinster ...”

This was a bad beginning, for Joanna flamed at once at the implication that her spinsterhood put her at any disadvantage as a woman of the world.

“Don’t talk nonsense, Mrs. Tolhurst; I may be unwed as yet, but I’m none of your Misses.”

“No, ma’am—­well, it’s about this Martha Tilden—­”

Joanna started.

“What about her?”

“Only, ma’am, that she’s six months gone.”

There was no chair in the larder, or Joanna would have fallen into it—­instead she staggered back against the shelves, with a great rattle of crockery.  Her face was as white as her own plates, and for a moment she could not speak.

“I made bold to tell you, Miss Joanna, for all the neighbourhood’s beginning to talk—­and the gal getting near her time and all....  I thought maybe you’d have noticed....  Don’t be in such a terrification about it, Miss Joanna....  I’m sorry I told you—­maybe I shud ought to have spuck to the gal fust ...”

“Don’t be a fool ... the dirty slut!—­I’ll learn her ... under my very roof—­”

“Oh, no, ma’am,’twasn’t under your roof—­we shouldn’t have allowed it.  She used to meet him in the field down by Beggar’s Bush ...”

“Hold your tongue.”

Mrs. Tolhurst was offended; she thought her mistress’s behaviour unwarranted either by modesty or indignation.  There were burning tears in Joanna’s eyes as she flung herself out of the room.  She was blind as she went down the passage, twisting her apron furiously in her hands.

“Martha Tilden!” she called—­“Martha Tilden!”

“Oh,” she thought in her heart, “I raised his wages so’s he could marry her—­for months this has been going on ... the field down by Beggar’s Bush ...  Oh, I could kill her!” Then shouting into the yard—­“Martha Tilden!  Martha Tilden!”

“I’m coming, Miss Joanna,” Martha’s soft drawly voice increased her bitterness; her own, compared with it, sounded harsh, empty, inexperienced.  Martha’s voice was full of the secrets of love—­the secrets of Dick Socknersh’s love.

“Come into the dairy,” she said hoarsely.

Martha came and stood before her.  She evidently knew what was ahead, for she looked pale and a little scared, and yet she had about her a strange air of confidence ... though not so strange, after all, since she carried Dick Socknersh’s child, and her memory was full of his caresses and the secrets of his love ... thus bravely could Joanna herself have faced an angry world....

“You leave my service at once,” she said.

Martha began to cry.

“You know what for?”

“Yes, Miss Joanna.”

“I wonder you’ve had the impudence to go about as you’ve done—­eating my food and taking my wages, while all the time you’ve been carrying on with my looker.”