"They're havin' an awful row," sobbed the child.
"They? Not your father and mother?"
"No, indeed! They never fight—aren't you ashamed of yourself! It's the other two—Aunt Fee and Harry. She says she never loved him much anyhow, and she didn't ask him to go down South and bother her, and he said he didn't believe she knew her own mind, and she said she wished he had any mind worth knowin', and she wished he was half as much of a man as Lieutenant Jermyn, that he'd been abusin'. She said you was a man, and he wasn't nothin' but a boy. And papa and mamma was gone out, and I was awful frightened, and I got the cook to bring me around here, so I could ask Miss Trewman if somethin' couldn't be done for 'em."
"Why should he have abused me?" asked Jermyn of no one in particular.
"Why should she compare him with you?" asked Kate. "Jermyn," she exclaimed, "did you ever make love to Fenie Wardlow?"
"Never! Upon my honor, my dear."
"Then I'm sure I don't know——"
"Neither do I. Suppose I go around with Trixy and find out?"
"I shall go with you," said Kate. There was something in her voice that Jermyn had never heard before, and it distracted his thoughts about Harry and Fenie. Nevertheless the two quickly left the house together, and Jermyn talked to Trixy rather than to Kate, and Kate was made so uncomfortable thereby that she talked incessantly to Trixy, which mystified Jermyn greatly, although Kate's hand grasped his arm tightly all the while.
On their way they chanced to meet Harry, to whom Jermyn said quickly: