"Tell me all!"
Kate drew back a pace, and leaned upon her clenched hands. "You knew Mr. Morton," she said, in a quick strained monotone. "When he was young, he lived with a woman. He wrote her a lot of letters—love letters. She turned up again a few months before he died, and threatened to show the letters if he didn't pay her. He had no money; he took money from the Mission and paid her. Then he died. His guilt was about to be found out. But David Aldrich said he took the money and went to prison. He did it because he thought if Mr. Morton's guilt was found out, the Mission would be destroyed and the people would go back to the devil. You know the rest. That's all."
Helen continued motionless—silent.
"It's all so," Kate went on. "The woman herself told me. She knew the truth. She'd been making David pay her to keep from telling that he was innocent. She told me before him. He had to admit it."
Kate leaned further across the corner of the table. "He made me promise never to tell." For a moment of dead quiet she gazed up into Helen's fixed face. "And why do you think I've broken my promise?" she asked in a low voice, between barely parted lips.
Helen rested one hand on the back of a chair and the other on the table. She trembled slightly, but she did not reply.
"Because"—there was a little quaver in Kate's voice—"I thought it might sometime make him happy."
There was another dead silence, during which Kate gazed piercingly into Helen's face.
"Do you love him?" she asked sharply.
Helen's arms tightened. After a moment her lips moved.