Molly got to her feet. She saw her flimsily constructed love world shattered by the girl before her. She knew Theodore still loved her, and that if he knew all her own 338 wickedness, his devotion would increase a hundredfold. He must not see Jinnie! Jinnie must not see him! Rapidly she reviewed the quarrels she and Theodore had had, remembered how punctiliously he always carried out his honorable intentions, and then—Molly went very near the girl, staring at her with terror in her eyes.
“Jinnie,” she said softly, “pretty Jinnie!”
Those words were Bobbie’s last earthly appeal to her, and Jinnie’s face blanched in recollection.
“Didn’t you love my baby?” Molly hurried on.
A memory of fluttering fingers traveling over her face left Jinnie’s heart cold. Next to Lafe and Theodore she had loved Bobbie best.
“I loved him, oh, very much indeed!” she whispered.
“And he often told you he loved—his—his—mother?”
“Yes.”
Molly was slowly drawing the girl’s hands into hers.
“He’d want me to be happy, Jinnie dear. Oh, please let me have the only little happiness left me!”