"I have heard—I could not help hearing. His father! Don told me his father was dead. What's all this? Tell me!"
For a moment they stood apart, three individuals only. Then, slowly, with subtle affiliation of sex, the women drew together, allied against the man.
It was Anne who again was first to speak. Her voice was high, clear, cold as ice, with a patrician note which came from somewhere out of the past.
"Let me have all this quite plain," said she. "Mrs. Lane said 'flesh and blood!' Mrs. Lane said 'your own son!' I heard her. What does it mean?"
"This is what it means!" said Aurora Lane, suddenly drawing Anne to her closely, after her one swift glance. "My boy's in jail. This—this man—Judge Henderson—is his father. He says he's hired to murder him—and he's our child."
"I didn't know!" broke out Judge Henderson, now facing both his hearers. "I never knew! You said he was dead—you told me so. It's all half a lifetime ago. I've had nothing to do with you, nor you with me, since we broke off more than twenty years ago. That was as you wished. God! I was only a man. You said the child died."
"Yes," said Aurora Lane, turning to Anne; "that's true—I did. I told that one lie to protect the boy. I sent him away when he was a baby to protect him. I said he was dead—to protect him—to keep him from ever knowing. But you know—you saw him—you felt it—you must have known, yesterday." She confronted the trembling man once more.
"Yesterday?" said Anne Oglesby.
"Yes. There was another trial then—and Judge Henderson prosecuted then also!" She turned again to him for his answer.
"I dropped the case."