“Yes, it’s true,” she answered in a whisper.
“Then my house is no place for the likes of you,” said Bridget Maccabe, rising with an air that would have done credit to Sarah Siddons. “There’s the door; out you go!”
“Oh, aunt, aunt, you don’t mean it?”
“Come!” taking her roughly by the arm, “I’ll never see your brazen face again.”
“Oh, Aunt Bridget!” cried the wretched girl, falling on the floor, and clasping her by the knees. “Don’t be so angry with me. Sure I would have told you long ago; only he would not let me. Sure we—we are married.”
“Ye are what? Get up off the floor, ye shameless hussey.”
“Married,” sobbed Lizzie, “married at a registry office in Dublin last year. Sure haven’t I my ring, and all the papers at the bottom of the little tin cash-box along with your bank book.”
“Then sit there on that chair, where I can see you, that I may have a good look at the biggest fool that ever drew the breath of life,” and Mrs. Maccabe moved back a few steps, and gazed at her weeping niece, with her arms akimbo.
“Lizzie, you are a wicked, low girl—deceiving them that was good to ye. What will Father Connell say, and the Reverend Mother, and (as an afterthought) the Malones?”
“I don’t care what they say,” rejoined Lizzie, plucking up a little spirit. “I am Mrs. Denis Malone, and as good as the best, and Denis is the only son and heir.”