"A nice kind of story," Bunny broke in furiously. "Just what any old maid would pick up if she went round with her nose in the village mud. It's true, Millie, that I was engaged to this girl last year, and then Christmas-time we saw that we were quite unsuited to one another and we broke it off."
"Is it true," asked Millie quietly, "that your mother says that you're to marry her?"
"My mother's old-fashioned. She thinks that I'm pledged in some way. I'm not pledged at all."
"Is it true that the village thinks that you're the father of this poor girl's child?"
"I don't know what the village thinks. They all hate me there, anyway. They'd say anything to hurt me. Probably this woman's been bribing them."
"Oh, poor girl! How old is she?"
"I don't know. Nineteen. Twenty."
"Oh, poor, poor girl! . . . Did you promise your mother that you would marry her?"
"I had to say something. I haven't a penny. My mother would cut me off absolutely if I didn't promise."
"And you've known all this the whole summer?"