Neelie entered the room, carrying the tray with the tea, the dry toast, and the pat of butter which composed the invalid's invariable breakfast.
"What does this mean?" asked Mrs. Milroy, speaking and looking as she might have spoken and looked if the wrong servant had come into the room.
Neelie put the tray down on the bedside table. "I thought I should like to bring you up your breakfast, mamma, for once in a way," she replied, "and I asked Rachel to let me."
"Come here," said Mrs. Milroy, "and wish me good-morning."
Neelie obeyed. As she stooped to kiss her mother, Mrs. Milroy caught her by the arm, and turned her roughly to the light. There were plain signs of disturbance and distress in her daughter's face. A deadly thrill of terror ran through Mrs. Milroy on the instant. She suspected that the opening of the letter had been discovered by Miss Gwilt, and that the nurse was keeping out of the way in consequence.
"Let me go, mamma," said Neelie, shrinking under her mother's grasp. "You hurt me."
"Tell me why you have brought up my breakfast this morning," persisted Mrs. Milroy.
"I have told you, mamma."
"You have not! You have made an excuse; I see it in your face. Come! what is it?"
Neelie's resolution gave way before her mother's. She looked aside uneasily at the things in the tray. "I have been vexed," she said, with an effort; "and I didn't want to stop in the breakfast-room. I wanted to come up here, and to speak to you."
"Vexed? Who has vexed you? What has happened? Has Miss Gwilt anything to do with it?"
Neelie looked round again at her mother in sudden curiosity and alarm. "Mamma!" she said, "you read my thoughts. I declare you frighten me. It was Miss Gwilt."
Before Mrs. Milroy could say a word more on her side, the door opened and the nurse looked in.
"Have you got what you want?" she asked, as composedly as usual. "Miss, there, insisted on taking your tray up this morning. Has she broken anything?"
"Go to the window. I want to speak to Rachel," said Mrs. Milroy.
As soon as her daughter's back was turned, she beckoned eagerly to the nurse. "Anything wrong?" she asked, in a whisper. "Do you think she suspects us?"
The nurse turned away with her hard, sneering smile. "I told you it should be done," she said, "and it has been done. She hasn't the ghost of a suspicion. I waited in the room; and I saw her take up the letter and open it."