"But what is it, Bunny?" Millie quietly repeated.
"Why, it's nothing. She's gone to my home and discovered that I was engaged last year to a girl there, a Miss Amery. We broke it off last Christmas, but my mother still wants me to marry her. That's why it's been so difficult all these weeks. But——"
"So you're not going to tell her the truth," interrupted Ellen. "I thought you wouldn't. I just thought you hadn't the pluck. Well, I will do it for you."
"It's lies—all lies, Millie. Whatever she tells you," Bunny broke in. "Send her away, Millie. What has she to do with us? You can ask me anything you like but I'm not going to be cross-questioned with her in the room."
Millie looked at him steadily, then turned to Ellen.
"What is it, Ellen, you've got to say? Bunny is right, you've been spying. That's contemptible. Nothing can justify it. But I'd like to hear what you think you've discovered, and it's better to say it before Mr. Baxter."
Ellen looked at Millie steadily. "I'm thinking only of you, Millie. Not of myself at all. You can hate me ever afterwards if you like, but one day, all the same, you'll be grateful—and you'll understand, too, how hard it has been for me to do it."
"Well," repeated Millie, scorn filling every word, "what is it that you think you've discovered?"
"Simply this," said Ellen, "that last autumn a girl in Mr. Baxter's village, the daughter of the village schoolmaster—Kate Amery is her name—was engaged secretly to Mr. Baxter. She is to have a baby in two months' time from now, as all the village knows. All the village also knows who is its father. Mr. Baxter has promised his mother to marry the girl.
"His mother insists on this, and until I told her she had no idea that he was involved with any one else."