“Including me,” cut in the man sarcastically.

“You didn’t care,” said Molly with asperity.

“How do you know I didn’t care? Did you tell me? Did you? Did I know?”

Molly shook her head.

“Then I insist upon knowing now, this moment!”

“My father would have killed me––”

“Well!” His voice rushed in upon her hesitancy.

“When I couldn’t stay home any longer, I went away to visit a cousin of my mother’s. At least, my father thought I’d gone there. I only stayed with Bertha a little while and father never knew the truth of it.”

“And then after that?”

“I didn’t know what to do with my baby. I was afraid people’d say I wasn’t married, and then father––”