Afraid to shut herself in with the sleeping fury, Mrs. Cross remained standing near the front door, which every now and then she opened to look for a policeman.  The day was cold; she shivered, she felt weak, wretched, ready to sob in her squalid distress.  Some twenty minutes passed, then, just as she opened the door to look about again, a rapid step sounded on the pavement, and there appeared her grocer.

“Oh, Mr. Jollyman!” she exclaimed.  “What I have just gone through!  That girl has gone raving mad—­she has broken almost everything in the house, and tried to kill me with the poker.  Oh, I am so glad you’ve come!  Of course there’s never a policeman when they’re wanted.  Do please come in.”

Warburton did not at once understand who was meant by “that girl,” but when Mrs. Cross threw open the sitting-room door, and exhibited her domestic prostrate in disgraceful slumber, the facts of the situation broke upon him.  This was the girl so strongly recommended by Mrs. Hopper.

“But I thought she had been doing very well—­”

“So she had, so she had, Mr. Jollyman—­except for a few little things—­though there was always something rather strange about her.  It’s only today that she broke out.  She is mad, I assure you, raving mad!”

Another explanation suggested itself to Warburton.

“Don’t you notice a suspicious odour?” he asked significantly.

“You think it’s that!” said Mrs. Cross, in a horrified whisper.  “Oh, I daresay you’re right.  I’m too agitated to notice anything.  Oh, Mr. Jollyman!  Do, do help me to get the creature out of the house.  How shameful that people gave her a good character.  But everybody deceives me—­everybody treats me cruelly, heartlessly.  Don’t leave me alone with that creature, Mr. Jollyman.  Oh, if you knew what I have been through with servants!  But never anything so bad as this—­never!  Oh, I feel quite ill—­I must sit down—­”

Fearful that his situation might become more embarrassing than it was, Warburton supported Mrs. Cross into the dining-room, and by dint of loudly cheerful talk in part composed her.  She consented to sit with the door locked, whilst her rescuer hurried in search of a policeman.  Before long, a constable’s tread sounded in the hall; Mrs. Cross told her story, exhibited the ruins of her crockery on the kitchen floor, and demanded instant expulsion of the dangerous rebel.  Between them, Warburton and the man in authority shook Martha into consciousness, made her pack her box, put her into a cab, and sent her off to the house where she had lived when out of service; she all the time weeping copiously, and protesting that there was no one in the world so dear to her as her outraged mistress.  About an hour was thus consumed.  When at length the policeman had withdrawn, and sudden quiet reigned in the house, Mrs. Cross seemed again on the point of fainting.

“How can I ever thank you, Mr. Jollyman!” she exclaimed, half hysterically, as she let herself sink into the armchair.  “Without you, what would have become of me!  Oh, I feel so weak, if I had strength to get myself a cup of tea—­”