"Well, I must be off," father said, fetching a heavy sigh. "I never could have believed it of a child of mine. I'll see you by-and-by, Mary, and hear all about the matter. But it's not you that's to blame."
"The first I heard of it was yesterday," says Mary, looking up into his face.
"Yes, yes—I know," says father.
Then he was gone, walking like an old man, and never casting one glance towards me: not one.
Mother spoke next. She said in a dry sort of tone, "It'll half kill him. He's always thought so much of his Kitty."
And I felt as if my heart would break: as if I couldn't bear any more: yet I wanted to hear all that Mary had to tell. I craved to know how she'd found out about the watch; and I was frightened for Walter, with a fear that he might have to go to prison for it. Being half-strangled with sobs, I made a sort of movement like going away, not knowing whether to go or stay; and mother said in that same dry voice—
"Kitty, you are to stay."
"I think Kitty ought to know the whole," Mary says gently.
"I'll have everything open and above board. Kitty is to stay," said mother, looking at Mary, not at me.
Then the tale came out slowly, bit by bit, as much as Mary knew. I think I'd best tell it, partly at all events, in my own words; for there were some things I heard later, not just at that moment, and I couldn't well separate them in memory.