n chamber, that was ajar. She had not
thought to close it, in her great haste.
She has taken everything, except the books: these she
removed from the boxes which held them, and piled carelessly upon the carpet; in
their place she took items from my dressing-room—gowns and coats, and hats
and boots and gloves and brooches—things, I suppose, to make a lady of her,
things that she has handled in her time here, things she has cleaned and pressed
and folded, and kept neat, kept ready.'' She has taken these—and, of course, the
clothes I bought Selina. And she has the money, and the tickets, and the passports
marked Margaret Prior and Marian Erie.
She even has the rope of hair, which I combed smooth, to coil about Selina''s
head to cover the marks of the prison scissors. She left me only this, to write in.
She left it neat and square, and with the cover wiped clean—as a good maid
would leave a kitchen-book, after taking out a recipe.
Vigers. I said the name again—I spat the name, it was like a poison in me, I felt
it rising in me, turning my flesh black. Vigers. What was she, to me? I could not
even recall the details of her face, her look, her manners. I could not say, cannot
say now, what shade her hair is, what colour her eye, how her lip curves—I know
she is plain, plainer even than I. And yet I must think, She has taken Selina from