“No, no, not your mother,” Hetty protested. And half to herself she added: “Not your mother. She would know.”
The little phrase was profoundly revealing. “She would know.” It struck Wint like a splash of cold water in the face. “She would know.” It told so old a story. Wint understood, at last; and Hetty saw understanding in his eyes, and braced herself to defy him. But Wint only said softly:
“Hetty? That.... You poor kid! I’m so sorry.”
Hetty laughed harshly; and her face began to twist and work and assume strange contortions, and abruptly she began to cry. She turned and groped her way to the chair again, and sat down with her head pillowed on her arms on the table, and sobbed as though her heart was broken. Wint stood very still, stunned and miserable, watching her. There was no sound at all in the kitchen except the sound of Hetty’s racking, choking sobs. In the stillness, Wint could hear the even murmur of his mother’s voice, three rooms away, as she talked to Mrs. Hullis. He could almost hear the words she said. And Hetty sobbed, with her head on her arms.
Wint went across to her and touched her head with his hand; and she brushed it away with an angry gesture, as a hurt dog snarls at the hand that comes to heal its hurt. She was like a hurt animal, he thought; she was quite alone in the world. Worse than alone, for she was here in Hardiston, where every one would make her business their business. For that is the way of small towns. Wint was terribly sorry for her, terribly anxious to help her. He had no thought, in this moment, of Jack Routt’s warnings; and if he had remembered them, they would only have hardened his determination to help her. Which may have been what Jack intended.
He said: “Cry it out, Hetty. Then I want to talk to you.”
She said thickly: “Go away. Let me alone.” But Wint did not move, while she cried and cried.
He stood just beside her. Hetty at last shifted her position, so that she could look down between her arms and see his feet where he waited. She said again:
“Go away.”
Wint chuckled comfortingly. “I’m not going away,” he said. “This is the time your friends will stick by you. I’m going to stick by you.”