The Truant Spirit by Sara Seale

very soon,” said Marthe complacently, and tucking her fat chin into her bosom settled at once by the fire for sleep.
    Bunny, next door, had heard most of the conversation, and her face was white as Brock came into the room by the garden door.
    “That woman is vile, obscene ...” she told him, and recounted most of what she had overheard. “The child was admirable in her replies, but it is wrong that she should have been exposed so long to that filthy mind. Whatever Lucille Faivre’s failings, she is the only relative Sabina has, and for the girl’s sake should be decently whitewashed.”
    Brock’s eyes were hard as flints.
    “If the woman makes trouble for you—” he began, and she smiled a little shakily.
    “Her insults don’t hurt me,” she said. “It’s the trouble she may make for others.”
    “For Bergerac?” For a moment the old mockery was back.
    “At the moment my concern is more for Sabina,” she replied with something like the familiar reproof.
    “The woman knows little of the old affair or she would have talked before,” he said. “Lucille, no doubt, has taken good care to keep forgotten facts to herself. But I won’t have you upset, Bunny. If the offer of your hospitality is going to rebound on yourself, then both she and the girl can go tomorrow.”
    “No, no,” she said. “Having overheard that little exchange, I am more than ever anxious to keep the girl until—”
    “Until she marries her elderly roue ?”
    “Until something can be resolved one way or the other,” she retorted stubbornly.
    Brock smiled, but he was not smiling when he woke Marthe in the next room and told her curtly that she could pack her bags.
    “But monsieur, I cannot leave before Madame gives me instructions,” she whined, resolving to take it out of Sabina, who, she could only suppose, had run to him with complaints.
    “Then I will telegraph Madame this evening,” he replied.
    “You will telegraph?” she repeated, her small eyes narrowing.
    “On Mrs. Fennell's behalf, naturally. She does not care to have you under her roof any longer in the circumstances. It is not Mademoiselle who repeated your conversation. It was overheard by Mrs. Fennell.”
    A dull colour stained her flat cheekbones.
    “It is easy to see that you and Madame have misled Mademoiselle—and Madame Lamb, also,” she said with a return to insolence.
    “You will keep a civil tongue in your head,” he returned sharply. “I know your kind, Marthe—grasping, loyal when it suits you for what you can get out of a bargain, but with no real consideration for anyone other than Marthe Dupont. You doubtless have your uses for Madame Lamb but you have none at all for me, or for Madame your hostess. You may stay the night since it is getting late, but you will have your things packed in readiness. The reply to my telegram will be here before morning.”
    The whole conversation had been conducted in French and, for the second time since meeting him, she was shocked into silence and the instinctive knowledge that for all her disparagement he was someone to be reckoned with. He did not wait for any argument, nor, clearly, did he expect it. She pulled the black wool shawl more tightly about her shoulders and shuffled upstairs to do her packing.
    Sabina was much subdued by Marthe’s uncompromising attitude. She knew nothing of Brock’s intervention, but if she had it would have made little difference. It seemed only too probable that Marthe had made the most of a very nebulous situation and Tante, with the Bergerac money almost within her grasp, would take no chances.
    She went out to the garden, avoiding the little graveyard, which she was not yet used to as part of the rectory s attractions, and came upon Willie Washer tending a compost heap. He did not see her and was capering about on the graves chanting:
    Hinty, minty cutry, corn,
    Apple seed and apple thorn Wire, briar, timber lock,
    Three geese in a flock. . .
    She drew nearer, careful to