Noticing this gesture, Mrs. Fishberry smiled.
“You needn’t be afraid of me,” she said, reassuringly. “I’m not after you now—in fact, I don’t want you! I’ve broken with Ed Tower.”
“You mean you aren’t married to him?” demanded Linda, thinking at once of the threatening telegram, and of the law suit that was planned.
“No, I’m not—and I’m not going to be!” returned the other, emphatically. “He’s too crooked for me.” She did not add that Tower himself had tired of her, and tried to escape from her first.
“I ran away from him in his own car,” she continued, “while he was setting that house on fire. A crime like that was too much for me.”
“He did set the house on fire?” Linda repeated, excitedly. “We thought so.”
“Linda and I and another girl were in it,” remarked Helen, grimly.
“Oh, my heavens!” exclaimed the woman, aghast at these words. “But you got out?”
“Yes,” replied Linda briefly, as she rose from her seat. “We must go now, Mrs. Fishberry— Oh, I might ask you—I suppose that law suit is off, then, if you are not Mrs. Tower?”
“Yes, of course.”