"I believe him implicitly." Her tone rang out in an astonishing assurance. She might have been pledging fealty to some adored intimate.
"You believe him. You would not believe me?"
She hedged a little here. "You gave me no proof—only the woman's word."
"Would you believe him without proof?"
She was silent, yet she knew she must.
"But," she said, with the haste of finishing an unwelcome subject, "I shall settle the matter as soon as possible after he comes back. If he tells me his daughter was married to my brother, she shall be paid every cent she is entitled to. But she shall not share this house—not an inch of it."
"Why not?"
Electra seemed to be carried on by a wave. Hurt pride found its voice,—all the revulsion she had felt in these days of Peter's divided allegiance.
"The house is ours. It belongs to the family. I shall make it over to grandmother, but not to that girl. She shall never own a timber in it."
Peter spoke involuntarily, with an unpremeditated wonder:—