"Bring Sabina Meldreth to me," said Mrs. Vane.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Flossy's first instinctive desire was to rise from her sofa and receive Sabina Meldreth standing--not at all by way of politeness, but as an intimation that the interview was not intended to be a long one. On second thoughts, she lay still. A show of languor and indifference was more likely to produce an impression on Sabina than excitement. Mrs.

Vane closed her heavy white eyelids, and did not raise them until the fair-haired woman in black, whom Hubert had noticed with the singers on New Year's Eve, was standing beside her couch.

"I thought you was asleep," said Miss Meldreth, with a slightly insolent air. "Some people can sleep through anything."

"All the better for them," answered Mrs. Vane dryly. "Why have you come?" She was not going to admit that she had been longing to see her visitor.

"I've come for the usual thing," said Sabina doggedly--"I want some money."

"You had some last month."

"Yes, and had to write three times for it--and me bothered about my rent. You're not carrying on business on fair terms, Mrs. Vane. I want to have a clear understanding. Mother managed all the money matters before; but she's gone now, and I should like something definite."

"What do you mean by 'definite'?"

"Either money down or regular quarterly payments, ma'am. You owe me that when you think of all I've done for you."

"Have I done nothing for you then," said Flossy, with a red gleam in her brown eyes, "in saving you from disgrace, ridding you of a permanent burden, pensioning your mother till her death, and giving you money whenever you have asked for it? Is that nothing at all, Sabina Meldreth?"

"It's something, of course," said Sabina stolidly; "but it ain't enough.

I want fifty pounds a quarter, paid regular. If you give me that, I'm thinking of going back to Whitminster, where there won't be so many people poking and prying about and asking questions."

Going back to Whitminster! That would be worth paying for indeed! But Flossy showed no sign of gratification.

"What people have been asking questions?"

"The parson, for one."

"And who else?"

"Well," said Sabina, rather reluctantly, "I won't say that there's any one else. But the parson's been at me more than once, and he keeps his eye upon me and preaches at me in church--and I won't stand it!"

"Why do you go to church?" said Mrs. Vane with a faint sneer.

"Because, if I don't, people would say I wasn't respectable," snapped Miss Meldreth; "and it's no good flying in their faces that way."

"Oh! Then you wish to be thought respectable?"

"Yes, I do; and, what's more, so do you, Mrs. Vane, in your own way.

You're too high and mighty, and pretend to be too ill to have to go to church; but, if you was me, and heard what folks say of them that stop away, you'd go yourself."

"Possibly," said Flossy; "we are in different circumstances. Now tell me--why has Mr. Evandale questioned you?"

"Because of what he heard when mother lay dying, of course. I wrote and warned you at the time."

"You should have said more then. You should have come and told me the whole story. Tell it me now."

It was a proof of Flossy's curious power over certain natures that Sabina Meldreth, wild and undisciplined as she was, seldom thought of resisting her will when in her very presence. She sat down on a chair that Mrs. Vane pointed out to her, and recounted, in rapid and not ill-chosen words, what had passed in her mother's room in the presence of the Rector and of Enid Vane. Flossy listened silently, tapping her lips from time to time with her fan.

When the story was ended, she turned on her visitor with a terrible flash of her usually sleepy eyes.

"You fool," she said; without however raising her voice--"you fool! You have known this all these months, and have never made your way to me to tell it! How was I to know that the matter was so important? How was I to suspect? I guessed something, of course; but not this! Why, Sabina Meldreth, we are at the mercy of that child's discretion! She has us in her hands--she can crush us when she pleases! Heavens and earth--and to think that I did not know!"

"You might have known," said Sabina sullenly. "I've been to the house more than once. I've written and said that I wanted to see you. I don't think it's me that's been the fool." But the last sentence was uttered almost in a whisper.

"No, I have been careless--I have been to blame!" said Flossy, a feverish spot of color showing itself in her white cheeks. "So she knows--she knows! That is why she looks at me so strangely; that is why she avoids me and will hardly speak to me. I understand her now."

"Maybe," said Sabina, "she thought mother was raving, or didn't understand her aright."

"No, no; she understood--she believes it. But why has she kept silence?

She hates me, and she might have ruined me--she might have secured Beechfield for herself by this time! What a little idiot she must be!"

Mrs. Vane was thinking aloud rather than addressing Sabina; but that young woman generally had an answer ready, and was not disposed to be ignored.

"Miss Vane's fond of her uncle," she said drily, "and did not want perhaps to vex him. Besides"--her voice dropped suddenly--"they tell me she's fond of the child."

Flossy did not seem to hear; she was revolving other matters in her mind.

"Do you think," she said presently; "that Miss Enid has told the Rector?

She has seen a good deal of him lately."

"No, I don't; I should have heard of it before now if she had," replied Sabina bluntly. "He don't mince matters; and he's got it into his head that I ought to be reformed, and that I've something on my mind. That's why I want to get to Whitminster."

"Go farther away than Whitminster," said Mrs. Vane suddenly; "go to London, and I'll give you the money you ask--two hundred pounds a year."

"Will you? Well, I'm not ill-disposed to go to London. One could live there very comfortable, I dare say, on two hundred a year. But how am I to know if you'll pay it? Give me a bit of writing----"

"Not a word--not a line! You need not be afraid. I'll keep my promise if I have to sell my jewels to do it; and the General does not ask me what I do with my allowance. By-and-by, Sabina, I may have an income of my own; and then--then it shall be better for you as well as for me."

Her tone and manner had grown silky and caressing. Miss Meldreth looked hard at her, as if suspecting that this sugary sweetness covered some ill design; but she read nothing but thoughtful serenity in Mrs. Vane's fair face.

"When the General's dead, you mean? Well, that's as it may be. But I can't wait for that, you know, ma'am. He's strong and well, and may live for twenty years to come. I want my affairs settled now."

"Very well. Go to London, send me your address, and you shall have the fifty pounds as soon as you are settled there."

"That won't quite do, Mrs. Vane. I want something down for travelling and moving expenses. I have some bills to settle before I can leave the village."

"You must be terribly extravagant!" said Flossy bitterly. "I gave you thirty pounds at Christmas. Will ten pounds do?"

"Twenty would be better."