Bribed with the smartest dress she had secured yet, the household
spy took her secret orders, and applied herself with a vile
enjoyment of it to her secret work.
The days passed, the work went on; but nothing had come of it.
Mistress and servant had a woman to deal with who was a match for
both of them.
Repeated intrusions on the major, when the governess happened to
be in the same room with him, failed to discover the slightest
impropriety of word, look, or action, on either side. Stealthy
watching and listening at the governess's bedroom door detected
that she kept a light in her room at late hours of the night, and
that she groaned and ground her teeth in her sleep--and detected
nothing more. Careful superintendence in the day-time proved that
she regularly posted her own letters, instead of giving them to
the servant; and that on certain occasions, when the occupation
of her hours out of lesson time and walking time was left at her
own disposal, she had been suddenly missed from the garden, and
then caught coming back alone to it from the park. Once and once
only, the nurse had found an opportunity of following her out of
the garden, had been detected immediately in the park, and had
been asked with the most exasperating politeness if she wished
to join Miss Gwilt in a walk.
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