618. I Killed Myself

Lily stayed in her room, clutching a handkerchief, nervous and anxious. The thumbnail of her right hand was ragged, bearing the marks left by gnawing on her nails whenever she was tense. She had never had this habit before and did not know when she had developed it.

She was terrified.

Lily had originally been only a maid in the house. As a girl not yet twenty, her work was simple: cleaning and taking care of Mr. Browning.

Unexpectedly, unlike the difficult theories the old maid who had instructed her had warned her about, the nearly sixty-year-old man was vigorous and spirited, looking more like a middle-aged man. Lily often mistook his age, thinking that the person she was caring for was not an old man but an uncle only a dozen years older than herself.

Then, just as many stories described, one night Browning threw Lily onto the bed. Such things were very common in the Ruined City. Pretty maids were easily noticed by the masters and young masters of wealthy families. If they were lucky, they could become mistresses and earn a considerable sum for a time. If they were unlucky, they might be driven from the household and forced into prostitution.

Someone like Lily, however, was exceedingly rare.

Browning had initially treated her as his mistress because he was already a widower, with no mistress of the house to torment her. Under normal circumstances, Lily might even have become his official wife after becoming pregnant, or at least received careful care alongside her child.

But Browning's sudden death had made everything uncertain.

If more time had passed and Browning had acknowledged her before his family, Lily might have been able to remain in the household, or been paid off by Browning's children.

But now, Browning's children—those shrewd