joined in the flesh—I was her own affinity. We had been cut, two halves
together, from a single piece of shining matter.
I said, ''She has lied to you, Mrs Jelf. She has lied to us both. But I think she
will explain it, when we find her. I think there might be a purpose to it, that we
cannot see. Can''t you think where she might have gone to? Is there no-one, who
might be keeping her?''
She nodded. It was on account of that, she said, that she had come here.
''And I,'' I said, ''know nothing! I know less, Mrs Jelf, than you!''
My voice sounded loud in the silence. She heard it, and hesitated. Then,'' You
know nothing, miss,'' she said, giving me an odd little look. ''But it was not you I
came to trouble. It was the other lady here.''
The other lady here? I turned to her again. I said, she surely could not mean my
mother?
But she shook her head, and then her look grew stranger. And if her mouth had
now dropped toads, or stones, I should not have been more frightened than I was
by her next words.
She said, she had not come to speak with me, at all. She had come to see
Selina''s maid, Ruth Vigers.
I gazed at her. There was a gentle ticking from the clock upon the
mantel—Pa''s clock, that he would stand before and set his watch to. Beyond that,
the house was perfectly silent.
Vigers, I said then. My servant, I said. Vigers, my servant, Selina''s maid.