"Yes. She has found out——"
"What—how—when?" His words came in gasps of fear.
"About us——"
"How?"
"It was mammy. She was wild with jealousy that I had taken her place and was allowed to sleep in the house. She got to slipping to the nursery at night and watching me. She must have seen me one night at your room door and told her to get rid of me."
The man suddenly gripped the girl's shoulders, swung her face toward him and gazed into her shifting eyes, while his breath came in labored gasps:
"You little yellow devil! Mammy never told that to my wife and you know it; she would have told me and I would have sent you away. She knows that story would kill my baby's mother and she'd have cut the tongue out of her own head sooner than betray me. She has always loved me as her own child—she'd fight for me and die for me and stand for me against every man, woman and child on earth!"
"Well, she told her," the girl sullenly repeated.
"Told her what?" he asked.
"That I was hanging around your room." She paused.