he poured the
remaining liquor into a glass. Ready at hand was mustard, made in a
tea-cup; having taken a certain quantity of this condiment on to her
knife, she proceeded to spread each sausage with it from end to end,
patting them in a friendly way as she finished the operation. Next she
sprinkled them with pepper, and after that she constructed a little
pile of salt on the side of the plate, using her fingers to convey it
from the salt-cellar. It remained to cut a thick slice of bread--she
held the loaf pressed to her bosom whilst doing this--and to crush it
down well into the black grease beside the sausages; then Clem was
ready to begin.

For five minutes she fed heartily, showing really remarkable skill in
conveying pieces of sausage to her mouth by means of the knife alone.
Finding it necessary to breathe at last, she looked round at Jane. The
hand-maiden was on her knees near the fire, scrubbing very hard at the
pan with successive pieces of newspaper. It was a sight to increase the
gusto of Clem's meal, but of a sudden there came into the girl's mind a
yet more delightful thought. I have mentioned that in the back-kitchen
lay the body of a dead woman; it was already encoffined, and waited for
interment on the morrow, when Mrs. Peckover would arrive with a certain
female relative from St. Albans. Now the proximity of this corpse was a
ceaseless occasion of dread and misery to Jane Snowdon; the poor child
had each night to make up a bed for herself in this front-room,
dragging together a little heap of rags when mother and daughter were
gone up to their chamber, and since the old woman's death it was much
if Jane had enjoyed one hour of unbroken sleep. She endeavoured to hide
these feelings, but Clem, with her Bed Indian scent, divined them
accurately enough. She hit upon a good idea.

'Go into the next room,' she commanded suddenly, 'and fetch the matches
off of the mantel-piece. I shall want to go upstairs presently, to see
if you've scrubbed the bed-room well.'

Jane was blanched; but she rose from her knees at once, and reached a
candlestick from above the fireplace.

'What's that for?' shouted Clem, with her mouth full. 'You've no need
of a light to find the mantel-piece. If you're not off--'

Jane hastened from the kitchen. Clem yelled to her to close the door,
and she had no choice but to obey. In the dark passage outside there
was darkness that might be felt. The child all but fainted with the
sickn