“Yes, yes, perhaps,” she replied hastily, growing very red and embarrassed. Always, John noticed, when the conversation showed signs of becoming personal, she grew alarmed, and instantly she was on her guard. He had observed this so many times that he resolved to question his mother more in detail about her. Who was Dorothy Snyder, and what was it she feared? Perhaps they were unwittingly harboring a criminal in their home.
As soon as he found an opportunity, he put the question to Mrs. Hadley.
“Mother,” he said, when they were alone that evening, “what do you make of Dorothy?”
“What do you mean, John?” asked Mrs. Hadley, looking up from her sewing.
“You know what I mean—who she is, and where does she come from?”
“She comes from a little town in New York state, and her people are all dead.”
“But what happened that made her so ill, and so penniless? And yet she said she had never worked before.”
Mrs. Hadley shook her head; she could not answer that question.
“I know nothing, except what she had volunteered to tell me. I never ask her about herself.”
“But how did you find her? You never told me the whole story.”