"In my sisters as in me!...

O God!" There came a time when no words passed between Jane and her women.
Silently they went about their household duties, and secretly they went about the underhand work to which they had been bidden.

The gloom of the house and the gloom of its mistress, which darkened even the bright spirit of little Fay, did not pervade these women.

Happiness was not among them, but they were aloof from gloom.

They spied and listened; they received and sent secret messengers; and they stole Jane's books and records, and finally the papers that were deeds of her possessions.
Through it all they were silent, rapt in a kind of trance.