“I don’t know what you’ve heard, dearie,” she said. “But if it is a patch on what I have heard—and found out—since ten o’clock last night, then I don’t wonder you haven’t slept.... Your Uncle Foster is away, of course?”
“Yes. He is coming back from Boston on the eleven o’clock train. I wish he was here,” she added, with a sudden change of tone. “I want to see him even more than I do you.”
Reliance bent forward to look into her face.
“Esther,” she asked, “have you and your uncle had a fallin’ out?”
“No ... not yet.”
“Not yet?... Esther, what does that mean?”
“It means— Oh, never mind what it means! Perhaps I will tell you by and by. I shall—because I had made up my mind to. But you came here to tell me something. What is it?”
Her aunt’s answer was prefaced by a troubled shake of the head.
“I came here to have a talk with you,” she said. “Yes, and to tell you something—a lot of things. But if already you have heard something which makes you feel bitter towards your Uncle Foster, I—well, I don’t know. I almost wish I had waited until he was here and told you both together.”
“Aunt Reliance, whatever you have to tell me won’t make any difference in my feeling toward him. If what I have heard is true—and I am afraid—yes, I am sure it is—then it is a matter between him and me. And one other. Don’t ask me about it now. Tell me what you came to tell. You have found out something about what happened that night, after the ‘Pinafore’ performance, between Seymour Covell and—and Bob. Of course you have. Well, so have I.”