I speak, instead. ''She wrote it,'' I say. My voice is thick, I am giddy. ''She wrote it. They took her. What then?''
Mrs Sucksby turns. Her gown is closed and perfectly smooth again, but she has her hand upon the bodice, as if nursing the words beneath. ''The lady?'' she says, distractedly. ''The lady died, dear girl.'' She sniffs, and her tone changes. ''Bust me, however, if she didn''t linger on another month before she done it! Who would have thought? That month was against us. For now her pa and her brother, having got her home, made her change her will.—You can guess what to. No penny to go to the daughter—meaning you, dear girl, so far as they knew—till the daughter marries. There''s gentlemen for you—ain''t it? She sent me a note to tell me, by a nurse. They''d got her into the madhouse by then, and you alongside her— well, that soon finished her off. It was a puzzle to her, she said, how things might turn out now; but she took her consolation from the
thought of my honesty. Poor girl!'' She seems almost sorry.''—That was her slip.''
Richard laughs. Mrs Sucksby smooths her mouth, and begins to look crafty. ''As for me,'' she says, ''—well, I had seen from the fir