"I didn't say a word that wasn't true," said Betty firmly, "and—and Anna knows it. Anna could have cleared Kitty, but she wouldn't, and I am not going to let Kitty bear the blame for her and Lettice any longer; and if they won't clear her, I will. Anna called me a sneak, and I said she was mean and bad, and I meant it; and so she is, to let Kitty go on bearing the blame and the disgrace all her life because she is too honourable to tell how mean they are."
"Did you say that Anna knew who went to Lettice with that letter that night, and that—it wasn't Kafcherine?" asked Aunt Pike, but so quietly and strangely that Betty was really quite frightened by her curious voice and manner.
"Oh, I wish I had not told," was the thought that rushed through her mind, while her cheeks grew hot with nervousness. But it was too late now to draw back; she must stick to her guns. "Yes," she said, but with evident reluctance. "Ask Anna, please. I—I mustn't say any more. Father wouldn't like—"
"Was it—Anna—herself?" asked Mrs. Pike, still in that strange low voice, only it sounded stranger and farther away this time.
"Oh, I can't tell you! I can't tell you!" cried Betty, shrinking now from telling the dreadful truth.
"There—is—no—need to," gasped Aunt Pike; but she spoke so low that Betty hardly heard the words, and the next moment the poor, shocked, stricken mother had slipped from her chair to the ground unconscious.
Betty saw her fall, and flew from the room screaming for help. Help was not long in coming. Dr. Yearsley ran from the study and the servants from the kitchen, and very soon they had raised her and laid her on the couch. But none of the restoratives they applied were of any avail, and presently they carried her upstairs and laid her on her bed.
But before that had happened, Betty, terrified almost out of her senses by the result of her indiscretion, had flown—flown out of the room and out of the house.
"Oh, what have I done! what have I done!" she moaned. "Father didn't want her to know, and Kitty didn't want her to, and now I have told her and it has killed her. I am sure I have killed her. And father is away, and Kitty—oh, what can I do? I can never go home any more. P'r'aps if I'm lost they'll be sorry and will forgive me," and Betty ran on, nearly frantic with fear, and weeping at the pathetic picture of her own disappearance.
The next morning Kitty, on her way from the music-room, where she had been practising before breakfast, saw the morning's letters lying on the hall table, and amongst them one directed to herself in Betty's hand. Without waiting to have it given to her in the usual way, she picked it up, and, little dreaming of the news it held, opened it at once.