"Stop. You have said that Nellie Ewing has not been at the theater of late; has been blue, and ill. What has caused all this?"
She colored hotly, and a frightened look crept into her eyes.
"You are not to hold me to blame?"
"Not if you answer me truly."
"One night I had come home from the theater with Nellie, and she began crying because Johnny did not come as he had promised, and did not write often enough. I was tired and cross, and I suppose I had taken too much wine. I forgot myself, and told her that Johnny had hired a man to personate a parson, and that she was not married at all. She broke down entirely after that."
I sprang to my feet, for the moment forgetting that the creature before me was a woman. I wanted to take her by the throat and fling her from the window.
"Go on!" I almost shouted. "Go on; my patience is nearly exhausted. Is Nellie Ewing seriously ill?"
"She is fretting and pining; she thinks she is dying, and she loves Johnny La Porte as much as ever."
"And Mamie Rutger?"