"Mistaken? Me? Not much! I don't furgit faces. You ask yer mother if she don't remember Mis' Cobb. Didn't I live right on the same floor with her fur months? Hain't yer mother ever told ye she lived here long ago?"
Betty nodded dumbly, miserably.
"Well, I lived next to her, and I knew the whole thing—how she got the letter tellin' her ter go, an' the money Burke Denby sent her—"
"Letter! Money! You mean he wrote her to—go—away? He paid her?" The girl had become suddenly galvanized into blazing anger.
"Sure! That's what I'm tellin' ye. An' yer mother went. I tried ter stop her. I told her ter go straight up ter them Denbys an' demand her rights—an' your rights. But she wouldn't. She hadn't a mite o' spunk. Just because he was ashamed of her she—"
"Ashamed of her! Ashamed of my mother!"—if but Helen Denby could have seen the flash in Betty's eyes!
"Sure! She wa'n't so tony, an' her folks wa'n't grand like his, ye know. That's why old Denby objected ter the marriage in the first place. But, say, didn't you know any of this I'm tellin' ye? Jiminy! but it does seem queer ter be tellin' ye yer own family secrets like this—an' you here workin' in his very home, an' not knowin' it, too. If that ain't the limit—like a regular story-book! Now, I ain't never one ter butt in where 'tain't none of my affairs, but I've got ter say this. You're a Denby, an' ought ter have some spunk; an' if I was you I'd brace right up an'— Here, don't ye want yer magazine? What are ye goin' ter do?"
But the girl was already halfway across the waiting-room.
If Betty's thoughts and emotions had been in a tumult on the way to the station, they were in a veritable chaos on the return trip. She did not go home. She turned her steps toward the Denby Mansion; and because she knew she could not possibly sit still, she walked all the way.
So this was the meaning of it—the black veil daytimes, the walks only at night, the nervous restlessness, the unhappiness. Her mother had had something to conceal, something to fear. Poor mother—dear mother—how she must have suffered!