She listened for a moment before she
started upstairs, she saw Mr. Crashaw's eyes in the dark--she heard
his voice.
"Punishment! Punishment!. . ."
She suddenly started to run up the black stairs, stumbled, ran
faster through the passage under the picture of the armed men,
arrived at last in her room, breathless.
During her undressing she stopped sometimes to listen. Her aunt's
bedroom was on the floor below hers, and she certainly could hear
nothing through the closed doors, and yet she fancied, as she stood
there, that the sound of sobbing came up to her and, twice, a sharp
cry.
"I suppose I'm terribly selfish," she thought, "I ought to want to
go and help Aunt Anne, and I don't." No, she didn't. She wanted to
run away from the house, miles and miles and miles. She climbed into
bed and thought of her escape. If Miss Trenchard did not answer her
letter, then she could go off to Uncle Mathew, greatly though she
disliked the thought of that; then she could live on her three
hundred pounds and look about until she found work or Martin came
for her.
But so ignorant was she of the world that she did not in the least
know how she could get her three hundred pounds.
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