Through the dark Jane turned her little, pinched face towards this fortunate woman, this other girl, blessed and chosen. Her dumb eyes grew bright, and flashed fire for that once; then they smouldered, and their spaniel look came on again.
“You ought to speak differently to me,” she said. “You should feel sorry for me, because it’s along of Ben. I tried to keep it up—all this while. I haven’t dared to break with him. I thought if I broke, and we’d been keeping company so long, maybe he might do a harm to Mr. Bayard. Then it come to me that I couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t bear it, not another time! And I told him so. And Ben, he swore an awful oath to me, and cleared out. And then Lena came and told.”
“What was it Ben swore?” asked Helen, whose sanguine heart was beginning to sink in earnest. “This is no time for being womanly, and—and not saying things. If it takes all the oaths in the catalogue of Angel Alley, it is my right to know what he said, and it is your duty to tell me!”
“Well,” said Jane stolidly, “he said: ‘Damn him to hell! If we ain’t a-goin’ to be married, he shan’t, neither!’”
“Thank you, Jane,” said Helen gently, after a long silence. She held out her hand; Jane took it, but dropped it quickly.
“Do you know the details? The plan? The plot—if there is a plot?” asked Helen, without outward signs of agitation.
“Lena said they said Christlove should never be dedicated,” answered Jane drearily. “Not if they had to put the parson out of the way to stop it.”
“Oh!”
“That’s what Lena said. She thought if Mr. Bayard could be got out of town for a spell, right away, Lena thought maybe that would set ’em off the notion of it. I told her Mr. Bayard wouldn’t go. She said you’d see to that.”
“Yes,” said Helen softly, “I will see to that.”