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 brought him some clean linen. It was contained in a basket which it was her custom to deposit on a chair behind the curtain at the foot of his bed.

"You can leave it here, Mrs. Brown," said Northcote, indicating with his finger a place on the floor.

"I had better take it out of the way, sir," said the old woman. "Besides, I have not made the bed."

"Never mind the bed," said Northcote; "that won't matter at all."

"Oh, no, sir, it would never do for you not to have your bed made," said the old woman, in a tone of quiet but determined expostulation.

"I tell you I don't want it made," said Northcote. "You can go."

The tone of his voice seemed to strike the old woman. Formerly he had always been kind and gentle to her; he had never used such a tone to her before.

"Very well, sir," she said meekly, looking at him with scared eyes.

Still, however, with a perversity which in the circumstances he could only regard as diabolical, she did not go. For suddenly she recollected that the day before she had lost her shawl, and it occurred to her now that it was not at all unlikely that she had left it beneath the bed. It was not in the least probable that she would find it there, but one of those irrational side-currents to mental activity, which science finds so baffling, had suggested to her that she might.

"What do you want now?" cried Northcote, as she moved towards the curtain.