"Sakes alive! Do you mean ter say that you don't know that Burke Denby is your father, an' that he give your mother the go-by when you was a kid, an' she lit out with you an' hain't been heard of since?"
"No, no, it can't be—it can't be! My father was good and fine, and—"
"Rats! Did she stuff ye ter that, too? I tell ye 'tis so. Say, look a-here! Wa'n't you down ter Martin's grocery last Sat'day night at nine o'clock?"
"Y-yes."
"Well, wa'n't you there with yer mother?"
"Y-yes." A power entirely outside of herself seemed to force the answers from Betty's lips.
"Well, I see ye. You was tergether, talkin' to the big fat man with the red nose. I started towards ye, but I lost ye in the crowd."
Betty's face had grown gray-white. She remembered now. That was the night her mother had run away from—something.
"But I knew her," nodded the woman. "I knew she was Helen Denby."
"But maybe you were—mistaken."