"There's something I must tell you. I—I ought to have told you before.... It's I who have been writing to him," she said.
"You?... It's you who have been What do you mean? Why does he write to me then?"
"He doesn't know. I always signed myself 'H,' of course, and one day he asked for my photograph. I——" She hesitated. She drooped before the girl abjectly.
"You sent him mine?" cried Hilda.
Bee nodded, her eyes to the ground.... The pause was broken by Hilda's giggle.
"Whatever did you do that for?" she said.
The deformed woman spoke by a gesture. "Then he came to Godstone, and fell in love with you," she went on huskily. "I didn't know it was he when we were there; I only guessed when I heard he was—when I heard what his brother had told you about him. I was writing to him when you came in, to say that I had deceived him. It's too late, the harm is done, but I was writing!"
"It was an awful shame," exclaimed Hilda with sudden heat. "Supposing he has talked to Vivian—I mean 'Mr. Harris'—about it? I expect he has—he seems to know his brother's here. Why, what a liar I shall look! It was a beastly thing to do, Bee. What will his brother think of me?"
"You're fond of Mr. Harris, aren't you?" inquired Bee humbly.
"Perhaps. Anyhow, I don't want him to imagine I'm such a hateful liar as to pretend I don't know a fellow I've been corresponding with for months."