Now it happened that as Ethel was ascending the cliff, Jane Hallet, within the pretty cottage near the top of it, was being taken to task by her aunt for the same fault that Mrs. Bent had spoken of--the staying abroad after nightfall. Miss Hallet had latterly found much occasion to speak on this score; but Jane was invariably ready with some plausible excuse; so that Miss Hallet, naturally unsuspicious, and trusting Jane as she would have trusted herself, never made much by the argument.
After taking the cambric handkerchief to Greylands' Rest the previous evening, Jane had gone home, swallowed her tea hastily, put off the best things that her aunt grumbled at her for having put on and then sat down to work. Some article was wanted in the house; and at dusk Jane ran down in her dark cloak to get it. From which expedition she did not get back until half-past nine was turned: and she seemed to have come up like one running for a wager. Miss Hallet was then ill with an attack of spasms, and Jane remained unreproved. This morning when the housework was done, and they had begun their sewing, Miss Hallet had leisure to recur to it. Jane sat by the window, busy at one of the handkerchiefs. The sun shone on her bright flaxen hair; the light print dress she wore was neat and nice--as Jane's dresses always were.
"How long does it take to get from here to Pike's shop and back again, Jane?"
"From here to Pike's shop and back again, aunt?--I could do it in a short ten minutes," said unsuspicious Jane, fancying her aunt might be wanting to send her there. "It would take you longer, of course."
"How did it happen then last night that it took you two hours and ten minutes?" demanded Miss Hallet. "You left here soon after half past seven, and you did not get back till close upon ten."
The soft colour in Jane's face grew bright on a sudden. She held her work to the window, as though some difficulty had occurred in the cambric.
"After buying the sugar, I went into the parlour to say good evening to Susan Pike, aunt. And then there came that dreadful outcry about Nancy Gleeson's poor burnt child."
The truth, but not the whole truth. Miss Jane had stayed three minutes with Susan Pike; and the commotion about the child had occurred some two hours later. The intervening time she did not allude to, or account for. Miss Hallet, never thinking to inquire minutely into time, so far accepted the explanation.