I even repeated the multiplication-table
rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I was not taking leave of
my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must have prevented my
hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time.
Once more I wearily climbed the Convent slope and entered the
level road. Here Kitty and the man started off at a canter, and I was
left alone with Mrs. Wessington. "Agnes," said I, "will you put
back your hood and tell me what it all means?" The hood dropped
noiselessly, and I was face to face with my dead and buried
mistress. She was wearing the dress in which I had last seen her
alive; carried the same tiny handkerchief in her right hand; and the
same cardcase in her left. (A woman eight months dead with a
cardcase!) I had to pin myself down to the multiplication-table,
and to set both hands on the stone parapet of the road, to assure
myself that that at least was real.
"Agnes," I repeated, "for pity's sake tell me what it all means."
Mrs. Wessington leaned forward, with that odd, quick turn of the
head I used to know so well, and spoke.
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