Afy tossed her head. "Where's who?" asked she.

"Richard Hare. My question was plain enough."

"How should I know where he is? It's like your impudence to mention him to me. Why don't you ask me where Old Nick is, and how he does? I'd rather own acquaintance with him than with Richard Hare, if I'd my choice between the two."

"Then you have left Richard Hare? How long since?"

"I have left--what do you say?" broke off Afy, whose lips were quivering ominously with suppressed pa.s.sion. "Perhaps you'll condescend to explain. I don't understand."

"When you left here, did you not go after Richard Hare--did you not join him?"

"I'll tell you what it is, Joyce," flashed Afy, her face indignant and her voice pa.s.sionate, "I have put up with some things from you in my time, but human nature has its limits of endurance, and I won't bear that. I have never set eyes on Richard Hare since that night of horror; I wish I could; I'd help to hang him."

Joyce paused. The belief that Afy was with him had been long and deeply imbued within her; it was the long-continued and firm conviction of all West Lynne, and a settled belief, such as that, is not easily shaken.

Was Afy telling the truth? She knew her propensity for making false a.s.sertions, when they served to excuse herself.

"Afy," she said at length, "let me understand you. When you left this place, was it not to share Richard Hare's flight? Have you not been living with him?"

"No!" burst forth Afy, with kindling eyes. "Living with him--with our father's murderer! Shame upon you, Joyce Hallijohn! You must be precious wicked yourself to suppose it."

"If I have judged you wrongly, Afy, I sincerely beg your pardon. Not only myself, but the whole of West Lynne, believed you were with him; and the thought has caused me pain night and day."

"What a cannibal minded set you all must be, then!" was Afy's indignant rejoinder.

"What have you been doing ever since, then? Where have you been?"

"Never mind, I say," repeated Afy. "West Lynne has not been so complimentary to me, it appears, that I need put myself out of my way to satisfy its curiosity. I was knocking about a bit at first, but I soon settled down as steady as Old Time--as steady as you."

"Are you married?" inquired Joyce, noting the word "settled."

"Catch me marrying," retorted Afy; "I like my liberty too well. Not but what I might be induced to change my condition, if anything out of the way eligible occurred; it must be very eligible, though, to tempt me. I am what I suppose you call yourself--a lady's maid."

"Indeed!" said Joyce, much relieved. "And are you comfortable, Afy? Are you in good service?"

"Middling, for that. The pay's not amiss, but there's a great deal to do, and Lady Mount Severn's too much of a Tartar for me."

Joyce looked at her in surprise. "What have you to do with Lady Mount Severn?"

"Well, that's good! It's where I am at service."

"At Lady Mount Severn's?"

"Why not? I have been there two years. It is not a great deal longer I shall stop, though; she had too much vinegar in her for me. But it poses me to imagine what on earth could have induced you to fancy I should go off with that d.i.c.k Hare," she added, for she could not forget the grievance.

"Look at the circ.u.mstances," argued Joyce. "You both disappeared."

"But not together."

"Nearly together. There were only a few days intervening. And you had neither money nor friends."

"You don't know what I had. But I would rather have died of want on father's grave than have shared his means," continued Afy, growing pa.s.sionate again.

"Where is he? Not hung, or I should have heard of it."

"He has never been seen since that night, Afy."

"Nor heard of?"

"Nor heard of. Most people think he is in Australia, or some other foreign land."

"The best place for him; the more distance he puts between him and home, the better. If he does come back, I hope he'll get his desserts--which is a rope's end. I'd go to his hanging."

"You are as bitter against him as Mr. Justice Hare. He would bring his son back to suffer, if he could."

"A cross-grained old camel!" remarked Afy, in allusion to the qualities, social and amiable, of the revered justice. "I don't defend d.i.c.k Hare--I hate him too much for that--but if his father had treated him differently, d.i.c.k might have been different. Well, let's talk of something else; the subject invariably gives me the shivers. Who is mistress here?"

"Miss Carlyle."

"Oh, I might have guessed that. Is she as fierce as ever?"

"There is little alteration in her."

"And there won't be on this side the grave. I say, Joyce, I don't want to encounter her; she might set on at me, like she has done many a time in the old days. Little love was there lost between me and Corny Carlyle. Is Mr. Carlyle at home?"

"He will be home to dinner. I dare say you would like some tea; you shall come and take it with me and Wilson, in the nursery."

"I was thinking you might have the grace to offer me something," cried Afy. "I intend to stop till to-morrow in the neighborhood. My lady gave me two days' holiday--for she was going to see her dreadful old grandmother, where she can't take a maid--and I thought I'd use it in coming to have a look at the old place again. Don't stare at me in that blank way, as if you feared I should ask the grand loan of sleeping here. I shall sleep at the Mount Severn Arms."

"I was not glancing at such a thought, Afy. Come and take your bonnet off."

"Is the nursery full of children?"

"There is only one child in it. Miss Lucy and Master William are with the governess."

Wilson received Afy with lofty condescension, having Richard Hare in her thoughts. But Joyce explained that it was all a misapprehension--that her sister had never been near Richard Hare, but was as indignant against him as they were. Upon which Wilson grew cordial and chatty, rejoicing in the delightful recreation her tongue would enjoy that evening.

Afy's account of herself, as to past proceedings, was certainly not the most satisfactory in the world; but, altogether, taken in the present, it was so vast an improvement upon Joyce's conclusions, that she had not felt so elated for many a day. When Mr. Carlyle returned home Joyce sought him, and acquainted him with what had happened; that Afy was come; was maid to Lady Mount Severn; and, above all, that she had never been with Richard Hare.

"Ah! You remember what I said, Joyce," he remarked. "That I did not believe Afy was with Richard Hare."

"I have been telling her so, sir, to be sure, when I informed her what people had believed," continued Joyce. "She nearly went into one of her old pa.s.sions."

"Does she seem steady, Joyce?"

"I think so, sir--steady for her. I was thinking, sir, that as she appears to have turned out so respectable, and is with Lady Mount Severn, you, perhaps, might see no objection to her sleeping here for to-night. It would be better than for her to go to the inn, as she talks of doing."

"None at all," replied Mr. Carlyle. "Let her remain."