arms were warm. Her face was smooth as ivory or alabaster. In a few weeks'' time, I thought— if our plot worked—she would be lying in the bed of a madhouse. Who would there be to be kind to her, then?
So I put her from me, but only for a moment; and I clambered over her and got beneath the blankets at her side. I put my arm about her, and at once she sank against me. It seemed the least that I could do. I pulled her closer. She was slender as anything. Not like Mrs Sucksby. Not like Mrs Sucksby, at all. She was more like a child. She still shivered a little, and when she blinked I felt the sweep of her lashes against my throat, like feathers. In time, however, the shivering stopped, and her lashes swept again and then were still. She grew heavy, and warm.
''Good girl,'' I said, too softly to wake her.
Next morning I woke a minute before she did. She opened her eyes, saw me, looked troubled, and tried to hide it.
''Did my dreams wake me in the night?'' she said, not meeting my gaze. ''Did I say foolish things? They say I speak nonsense, in my sleep, as other girls snore.'' She blushed, and laughed. ''But how good you were, to come and keep me company!''
I didn''t tell her about the crinoline. At eight o''clock she went off to her uncle, and at one I went to fetch her—taking care, this time, to mind the pointing finger on the floor. Then we walked in the park, to the graves and the river; she sewed, and dozed, and was