But when the meal was over, and Mr. Royall
rose from the table, he looked back at Charity, who had stayed to help
the old woman clear away the dishes.
"I want to speak to you a minute," he said; and she followed him across
the passage, wondering.
He seated himself in his black horse-hair armchair, and she leaned
against the window, indifferently. She was impatient to be gone to the
library, to hunt for the book on North Dormer.
"See here," he said, "why ain't you at the library the days you're
supposed to be there?"
The question, breaking in on her mood of blissful abstraction, deprived
her of speech, and she stared at him for a moment without answering.
"Who says I ain't?"
"There's been some complaints made, it appears. Miss Hatchard sent for
me this morning----"
Charity's smouldering resentment broke into a blaze. "I know! Orma Fry,
and that toad of a Targatt girl and Ben Fry, like as not. He's going
round with her. The low-down sneaks--I always knew they'd try to have me
out! As if anybody ever came to the library, anyhow!"
"Somebody did yesterday, and you weren't there.
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