"You're not, are you?" he pleaded. "Tell father you're not."
I was so sorry for Hugh that I hardly thought of myself. I was benumbed. The suddenness of the attack had been like a blow from behind that stuns you without taking away your consciousness. In any case Mr. Brokenshire gave me no time, for he laughed gratingly.
"She can't do that, my boy, because she is. Everybody knows it. I know it—and Ethel and Mildred and Cissie. They're all here and they can contradict me if I'm saying what isn't so."
"But she may not know it herself," Mrs. Billing croaked. "A girl is often the last to make that discovery."
"Ask her."
Hugh obeyed, still clutching my wrist.
"I'm asking you, little Alix. You're not, are you?"
I could say nothing. Apart from the fact that I didn't knew what to say, I was dumbfounded by the way in which it had all come upon me. The only words that occurred to me were:
"I think Mr. Brokenshire is ill."
Oddly enough. I was convinced of that. It was the one assuaging fact. He might hate me, but he wouldn't have made me the object of this mad-bull rush if he had been in his right mind. He was not in his right mind; he was merely a blood-blinded animal as he went on: