Katherine obeyed.
"You must have been at the house late, yesterday afternoon," she said, between her absent sips. "For, I wasn't there, and I'd been at home all day except for an hour or so toward evening, when I went to the Ronalds'. When I came in grandmother called me, and, now I come to think of it, she did seem milder, kinder. She told me to take my dinner and then, after dinner, to come to her. It always scares me when grandmother summons me to appear before her—like a pensioner, or a criminal. It's always been that way, ever since I can remember. The sight of her, sitting there, cold and distant as a marble image, always freezes me to ice. I can't help it. I know I'm a coward, but I can't help it.
"I couldn't eat my dinner, for thinking what she had to say, so, by the time I went up to her, I was all of a tremble inside, though I probably didn't show it.
"Then she told me—told me—about her life. About my grandfather—my father. If you knew what I've sprung from, Mrs. Slawson, you'd turn me out of your house."
"Rot!" said Martha, "askin' pardon for the liberty."
Katherine went on—"Think of being watched, day after day—always under suspicion.—Think of having some one always being in fear and trembling because the time'll surely come when you'll show what you've sprung from. And, of course, it comes. I did the things my grandfather and my father had done before me. That was why, when I told her about the pocket, she sent me away from her. The thing she had dreaded, had happened."
"It always does," said Martha.
"So that's what I am," the girl went on shudderingly, "a coward, and a liar, and a thief. The child, and the grandchild, of cowards, thieves, liars. There's no hope for me! I can never be anything else."
Martha's hand upon her shoulder shook her, none too gently.
"Say, stop that nonsense, Miss Katherine. Stop it right now, before you say another word. There ain't any truth in it, to begin with, an' I say it's wicked to think such things. Just you answer me a couple o' questions, will you?"