"Keep your place at the
table," she said to Louisa, impatiently; "but lay aside your work. I
want you to attend carefully to what I am going to say."
Louisa obeyed. Magdalen seated herself at the opposite side of the
table, and moved the candles, so as to obtain a clear and uninterrupted
view of her servant's face.
"Have you noticed a respectable elderly woman," she began, abruptly,
"who has been here once or twice in the last fortnight to pay me a
visit?"
"Yes, ma'am; I think I let her in the second time she came. An elderly
person named Mrs. Attwood?"
"That is the person I mean. Mrs. Attwood is Mr. Loscombe's housekeeper;
not the housekeeper at his private residence, but the housekeeper at his
offices in Lincoln's Inn. I promised to go and drink tea with her some
evening this week, and I have been to-night. It is strange of me, is
it not, to be on these familiar terms with a woman in Mrs. Attwood's
situation?"
Louisa made no answer in words. Her face spoke for her: she could hardly
avoid thinking it strange.
"I had a motive for making friends with Mrs. Attwood," Magdalen went on.
"She is a widow, with a large family of daughters.
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