Christine cast at her the look of a well-bred woman insulted by a brawling fishwife, and with Roddy's hand tightly in hers, walked out of the veranda without deigning to answer.
But though her mien was haughty as she walked away from Saxby's bungalow holding Roddy's hand, her spirits were at zero. She had burned her boats with a vengeance, and come out into the open to face an enemy who would stick at nothing, and who, apparently, had everyone at the farm at her side, including the big, good-natured-seeming Saxby.
It would be difficult to stay on at Blue Aloes and protect Roddy if his stepmother insisted on her departure, and she did not see how she was going to do it. She only knew that nothing and no one should budge her from the place. Something dogged in her upheld her from dismay and determined her to take a stand against the whole array of them. She was in the right, and it was her plain duty to do as Bernard van Cannan had besought, and not go until she could place Roddy in his father's hands with the full story of his persecutions.
"Tell me about it, Roddy," she said quietly, as they walked away. "Don't hide anything. You know that I love you and that your father has trusted you to my care."
"Yes," he assented eagerly; "but how did you know about my real mammie being dead?" His natural resilience had already helped him to surmount the terror just past, and he was almost himself again. "I wanted to tell you, but I had promised mamma not to tell any one."
It was as Christine had supposed. She explained her finding of the tombstone and the yellow rose, but not the rest of her terrible conclusions.
"I put it there," he said shyly. "She always loved yellow and red flowers. I was keeping the other two for her and Carol in the graveyard."
Christine squeezed the warm little hand, but continued her questions steadily.
"What happened after you had been to the outhouse?"
"Mamma was waiting for me on the stoep. She said she wanted me to come with her to see Mrs. Saxby." He added, with the sudden memory of surprise: "But we didn't see Mrs. Saxby. I wonder where she was."