Neelie started up, and tried to put her mother back on the pillow.
"Mamma!" she exclaimed, "are you in pain? Are you ill? You frighten me!"
"Nothing, nothing, nothing," said Mrs. Milroy. She was too violently agitated to make any other than the commonest excuse. "My nerves are bad this morning; don't notice it. I'll try the other side of the pillow. Go on! go on! I'm listening, though I'm not looking at you." She turned her face to the wall, and clinched her trembling hands convulsively beneath the bedclothes. "I've got her!" she whispered to herself, under her breath. "I've got her at last!"
"I'm afraid I've been talking too much," said Neelie. "I'm afraid I've been stopping here too long. Shall I go downstairs, mamma, and come back later in the day?"
"Go on," repeated Mrs. Milroy, mechanically. "What did your father say next? Anything more about Mr. Armadale?"
"Nothing more, except how papa answered him," replied Neelie. "Papa repeated his own words when he told me about it. He said, 'In the absence of any confidence volunteered by the lady herself, Mr. Armadale, all I know or wish to know--and you must excuse me for saying, all any one else need know or wish to know--is that Miss Gwilt gave me a perfectly satisfactory reference before she entered my house.' Severe, mamma, wasn't it? I don't pity him in the least; he richly deserved it. The next thing was papa's caution to me. He told me to check Mr. Armadale's curiosity if he applied to me next. As if he was likely to apply to me! And as if I should listen to him if he did! That's all, mamma. You won't suppose, will you, that I have told you this because I want to hinder Mr. Armadale from marrying Miss Gwilt? Let him marry her if he pleases; I don't care!" said Neelie, in a voice that faltered a little, and with a face which was hardly composed enough to be in perfect harmony with a declaration of indifference. "All I want is to be relieved from the misery of having Miss Gwilt for my governess. I'd rather go to school. I should like to go to school. My mind's quite changed about all that, only I haven't the heart to tell papa. I don't know what's come to me, I don't seem to have heart enough for anything now; and when papa takes me on his knee in the evening, and says, 'Let's have a talk, Neelie,' he makes me cry. Would you mind breaking it to him, mamma, that I've changed my mind, and I want to go to school?" The tears rose thickly in her eyes, and she failed to see that her mother never even turned on the pillow to look round at her.