Harriet had gripped her arm with both hands. Her face was ghastly. "She knows? She knows?" she gasped. "Then she will tell him. Oh! Why was I ever born?"
Betty made her sit down and took her head in her arms. Harriet was weeping with more passion than she ever had seen her display.
"You believe me always, don't you?" she said. "For Miss Trumbull I cannot answer, but for Sally I can—positively. She never would do a mean and ignoble thing."
"She loves him!"
That is the more reason for not telling him. Cannot you understand high-mindedness?"
"Oh, yes. You are high-minded, and he—that is the reason I should die if he found out; for he hates, he loathes deceit. Oh, I've grown to hate this country. I love you, but I'd like to forget that it was ever on the map. I wish I was coal black and had been born in Africa."
"Why don't you go there and live, set up a sort of court?" asked Betty, seized with an inspiration.
"And live among niggers? I despise and abhor niggers! If one put his dirty black paw on me, I'd 'most kill him!"
Betty turned away her head to conceal a smile; but Harriet, who was wholly without humour, continued:
"Betty, honey, I want you to promise me that if I ever do anything to disappoint you, you'll forgive me. I love you so I couldn't bear to have you despise me."