“Confound the girl!” he thought.  “She’s going to faint now!  What an infernal nuisance!”

Compunction, instead of softening him, made him angry with himself.  He felt awkward, at a loss, furious.

“Mrs. Tams!” he called out, and hurried from the room.  “Mrs. Tams!” As he went out he was rather startled to find that the door had not been quite closed.

In the lobby he called again, “Mrs. Tams!”

The kitchen gas showed a speck of blue.  He had not noticed it when he came into the house:  the kitchen door must have been shut, then.  He looked up the stairs.  He could discern that the door of Mrs. Tams’s bedroom, at the top, was open, and that there was no light in the room.  Puzzled, he rushed to the kitchen, and snatched at his hat as he went, sticking it anyhow on his head.

“Eh, mester, what ever’s amiss?”

With these alarmed words Mrs. Tams appeared suddenly from behind the kitchen door; she seemed a little out of breath, as far as Louis could hear; he could not see her very well.  The thought flashed through his mind.  “She’s been listening at doors.”

“Oh!  There you are,” he said, with an effort at ordinariness of demeanour.  “Just go in to Mrs. Fores, will you?  Something’s the matter with her.  It’s nothing, but I have to go out.”

Mrs. Tams answered, trembling:  “Nay, mester, I’m none going to interfere.  I go into no parlour.”

“But I tell you she’s fainting.”

“Ye’d happen better look after her yerself, Mr. Louis,” said Mrs. Tams in a queer voice.

“But don’t you understand I’ve got to go out?”

He was astounded and most seriously disconcerted by Mrs. Tams’s very singular behaviour.

“If ye’ll excuse me being so bold, sir,” said Mrs. Tams, “ye ought for be right well ashamed o’ yeself.  And that I’ll say with my dying breath.”

She dropped on to the hard Windsor chair, and, lifting her apron, began to whimper.

Louis could feel himself blushing.

“It seems to me you’d better look out for a fresh situation,” he remarked curtly, as he turned to leave the kitchen.

“Happen I had, mester,” Mrs. Tams agreed sadly; and then with fire:  “But I go into no parlour.  You get back to her, mester.  Going out again at this time o’ night, and missis as her is!  If you stop where a husband ought for be, her’ll soon mend, I warrant.”

He went back, cursing all women, because he had no alternative but to go back.  He dared not do otherwise....  It was only a swoon.  But was it only a swoon?  Suppose ...!  He was afraid of public opinion; he was afraid of Mrs. Tams’s opinion.  Mrs. Tams had pierced him.  He went back, dashing his hat on to the oak chest.

III