“We need go no further, then. Admitting thee's right in all other respects, here is cause enough for me. I put it to thee, as a sensible woman, whether I would not cover both myself and Martha with shame, by allowing her marriage with Gilbert Potter?”
Miss Lavender sat silently in her chair and appeared to meditate.
“Thee doesn't answer,” the Doctor remarked, after a pause.
“I dunno how it come about,” she said, lifting her head and fixing her dull eyes on vacancy; “I was thinkin' o' the time I was up at Strasburg, while your brother was livin', more 'n twenty year ago.”
With all his habitual self-control and gravity of deportment, Dr. Deane could not repress a violent start of surprise. He darted a keen, fierce glance at Miss Betsy's face, but she was staring at the opposite wall, apparently unconscious of the effect of her words.
“I don't see what that has to do with Gilbert Potter,” he presently said, collecting himself with an effort.
“Nor I, neither,” Miss Lavender absently replied, “only it happened that I knowed Eliza Little,—her that used to live at the Gap, you know,—and just afore she died, that fall the fever was so bad, and I nussin' her, and not another soul awake in the house, she told me a secret about your brother's boy, and I must say few men would ha' acted as Henry done, and there's more 'n one mighty beholden to him.”
Dr. Deane stretched out his hand as if he would close her mouth. His face was like fire, and a wild expression of fear and pain shot from his eyes.
“Betsy Lavender,” he said, in a hollow voice, “thee is a terrible woman. Thee forces even the secrets of the dying from them, and brings up knowledge that should be hidden forever. What can all this avail thee? Why does thee threaten me with appearances, that cannot now be explained, all the witnesses being dead?”
“Witnesses bein' dead,” she repeated. “Are you sorry for that?”