"I didn't say I heard anything. Go back to bed."
Helen obeyed, and she was falling softly into sleep when the voice, like a plucked wire, snatched her back.
"Helen! I want to tell you something."
"I'm listening." She stared at the corner whence the voice was struggling, and gradually the bed and Mildred's body freed themselves from the gloom.
By a supreme effort, the next words were uttered without a blur and with a loudness that chased itself about the room.
"I am to blame."
"To blame?" Helen questioned softly.
"It was my fault, not Edith's—not your mother's."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Notya dear."
"Your mother." The voice was querulous. "I was—unkind to your mother. Oh—worse than that!" The bed creaked, and a long sigh gave place to the halting speech in which the sibilants were thickened into lisping sounds.