“I was not speaking of Lee,” said Overton.
Nellie put her hand to her head. “Oh, I don’t know what to think,” she said, and jumped up and walked to the window, as if to get away from Emmons, who was ready to tell her exactly what to think.
She stood there, and there was silence in the room. Overton sat feeling his chin, as if interested in nothing but the closeness of his morning’s shave. Vickers, though his head was bent, had fixed his eyes on Nellie; and Emmons leant back with the manner of the one sane man in a party of lunatics.
Nellie was the first to speak. Turning from the window she asked,
“If you are not my cousin, who are you?”
“My name is Lewis Vickers.”
She thought it over a minute, and threw out her hands despairingly.
“Oh, it is impossible!” she cried. “Why, if you were not my cousin, should you have stayed and worked for us, and borne all the hideous things I said to you? Only a saint would do such a thing.”
“He’ll not ask you to believe him a saint,” put in Overton.
“No, I don’t even claim to be much of an improvement on Lee.”