“But I can’t stop, Esther. Don’t you see? I am in a hurry. This lawyer thing is important.”
Her eyes flashed and her tone changed. “Important!” she repeated, scornfully. “Does that mean it is more important than clearing the name of—of some one who is gossiped about and lied about and accused of—of—oh, of attempted murder, very likely? Is your miserable lawsuit more important than that? It isn’t to me, I can tell you.”
“Why, Esther—”
“Uncle Foster, you were going away this afternoon without telling me anything. I know you were. All through this dreadful affair you have kept secrets from me, and hidden the truth from me. You didn’t intend telling me one word of what Uncle Millard— Oh, I won’t call him that! I hate him!—of what he told you in the train yesterday. You were going to hide that from me, too.”
Foster Townsend leaned forward. His interview with Millard Clark had taken place only the previous afternoon. Clark had given his oath that he had told no one the details of what he had seen and heard that night on the lower road. He had, under threats of bodily harm if he ever told any one else, repeated that oath. And now, within a few hours.... Townsend leaned slowly back in the chair.
“Humph!” he growled. “Reliance told you, of course. The confounded lying sneak told her and she ran up hot foot to tattle to you. I’ll break that fellow’s neck next time I see him. I’d like to break hers,” he added, under his breath.
Esther ignored the threatened danger to the Clark necks. She was no longer pale; the color had returned to her cheeks.
“Yes,” she said, defiantly. “Yes, Aunt Reliance did tell me. Of course she did. But you weren’t going to tell me. You were going to hide it from me, as you have hidden all the rest.”
“How could I tell you?” impatiently. “You weren’t around when I got here. You weren’t around at dinner time. And when you did come home you came straight up here without so much as a word to me. What chance have I had to tell you anything? Come, come, girl! be fair!”
The word was an unfortunate choice. “Oh, don’t ask me to be fair!” she retorted, fiercely. “How fair have you been to me? You know you weren’t going to tell me. If you had intended to tell you would have done it the moment you entered this room. I gave you the opportunity to tell. I even asked you to. And all you did was intimate that you had ‘heard’ some things. You tried to put me off.”