"Out with it, Hetty, whatever it is."
"Aunt, before I say a word, you've got to make me a promise."
"What's that?"
"You won't tell a soul what I am going to say to you."
"I hate making promises of that sort, Hetty."
"Never mind whether you hate it or not. Promise or I shall go mad."
"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Armitage, "why should a poor woman be bothered in this way, and you neither kith nor kin to me. Don't you forget that it's Armitage you belong to. You've no blood of mine, thank goodness, in your veins."
"What does that matter. You're a woman, and I'm another. I'm just in the most awful position a girl could be in. But whatever happens, I'll be true to him. Yes, Aunt Fanny, I'll be true to him. I'm nothing to him, no more than if I were a weed, but I love him madly, deeply, desperately. He is all the world to me. He is my master, and I am his slave. Of course I'm nothing to him, but he's everything to me, and he shan't die. Aunt Fanny, you and I have got to be true to him. We must share the thing together, for I can't keep the secret by myself. You must share it with me, Aunt Fanny."
Up to this point, Mrs. Armitage had regarded Hetty's words as merely those of a hysterical and over-wrought girl. Now, however, she began to perceive method in her madness.
"Look here, child," she said, "if you've got anything to say, say it, and have done with it. I'm not blessed with over much patience, and I can't stand beating round the bush. If you have a secret, out with it, you silly thing. Oh, yes, of course I won't betray you. I expect it's just this, you've gone and done something you oughtn't to. Oh, what have I done to be blessed with a niece-in-law like you?