'A friend of mine who's working at South Kensington. You can see--she knows a lot about artists.'
'And what she doesn't know she makes up,' said Phoebe, with slow contempt. 'You tell her, Miss Morrison, from me, she might be better employed than writing nasty, lying gossip about people she never saw.'
She caught up her child, who flung her arms round her mother's neck, nestling on her shoulder.
'Oh, well, if you're going to take it like that--' said the other, with a laugh.
'I _am_ taking it like that, you see,' said Phoebe, walking to the door and throwing it wide. 'You'd better go, Miss Morrison. I am sure I can't imagine why you came. I should have thought you'd have had sorrow enough of your own, without trying to make it for other people.'
'Well, of course, if you don't want to know the truth, you needn't.'
'It isn't truth,' she said. 'But if it was--Did you want to know the truth about your father?' Her white face, encircled by the child's arms, quivered as she spoke.
'Don't you abuse my father,' cried Bella, furiously.
'I wasn't going to abuse him,' she said, in a choked voice. 'I was sorry for him--and for your mother. But _you've_ got a hard, wicked heart--and I hope I'll never see you again, Miss Morrison. I'll thank you, please, to leave my house.'
The other drew down her veil with an affected smile and shrug. 'Good-bye, Mrs. Fenwick. Perhaps you'll find out before long that my friend wasn't such a fool to write that letter--and I wasn't such a beast to tell you--as you think now. Good-bye!'
Phoebe said nothing. The girl passed her insolently, and left the house.
Phoebe put the child to bed, sat without touching a morsel while Daisy supped, and then shut herself into the parlour, saying that she was going to sit up over her work, to which only a few last touches were wanting. It had been her intention to go with the carrier to Windermere the following day in order to hand it over to the shop that had got her the commission, and ask for payment.
But as soon as she was alone in the room, with her lamp and her work, she swept its silken, many-coloured mass aside, found a sheet of paper, and began to write.
She was trying to write down, as nearly as she could remember, the words of the letter which Bella had shown her.
