"Oh, my lady, I—I doan't know, I doan't know. No, no, there bain't anyone else, no one else—I promise, I swear, my lady, there bain't, there couldn't be! How could there be?"
Kathleen took her hand, she held it, it was very hot, this small hand of the girl's.
"Betty, child," she said, "you are not well this evening, your hand is hot and—" she lifted her hand to Betty's forehead, that cool, white, slender hand of hers, and let it rest there for a moment.
"And your head is hot, too, child, you had better go to bed and presently I will ring and ask that something is taken to you. No, Betty, don't wait, I can manage quite well to-night; go to bed, child, and go to sleep and forget all your troubles, and if you don't want Abram, why then, Betty, you shall not have Abram and no one shall force you to." She pushed the silken fair hair back from the girl's forehead; she smiled af her.
"Now to bed, Betty, and to sleep and forget all your little troubles, child, and to-morrow come to me with a smile on your lips as I would have you."
"Oh—my lady, if—if I could only dare—dare tell—'ee," Betty cried passionately. She caught Kathleen's hand and held it with both her own. "If only I could dare——"
"Dare what? Betty, tell me, child, if there is anything——?"
"No, no, I can't, I be mad to speak of it even—I think I be going mad altogether, my lady, sometimes I du think I bain't like other maids wi' such foolish strange notions that I get. I can't—can't tell 'ee, my lady, doan't ask me, for I can't—I can't." And then Betty flung the kind hand away and rushed to the door, fumbled for a moment with the lock, and then opened the door, fled.
"And so," Kathleen said, "we all have our troubles, our fears and our loves, Betty and I and all Eve's daughters."
She dressed herself, it was no hardship or novelty to her.