"Yes," muttered Estella.
"Did you have a quarrel with him?"
"No."
"What made you act so queer?"
"I couldn't help it," faltered the girl.
The food she was eating seemed to choke her. She wished she were a hundred miles away from everyone she ever knew.
Mrs. Bowes gave a grunt of dissatisfaction.
"Well, I think it is a pretty queer piece of business. But if you are satisfied, it isn't anyone else's concern, I suppose. He stayed with her till ten o'clock and when he left she did everything but kiss him—and she asked him to come back too. I heard."
"Aunt!" protested the girl.
She felt as if her aunt were striking her blow after blow on a sensitive, quivering spot. It was bad enough to know it all, but to hear it put into such cold, brutal words was more than she could endure. It seemed to make everything so horribly sure.