"Oh, Mamma! don't! don't! It is—she is—Elizabeth—"
Then she fled.
That night, at about two o'clock, Mrs. Maitland entered her stepdaughter's room. Nannie was dozing, but started up in her bed, her heart in her throat at the sight of the gaunt figure standing beside her. Blair's mother had a candle in one hand, and the other was curved about it to protect the bending flame from the draught of the open door; the light flickered up on her face, and Nannie was conscious of how deep the wrinkles were on her forehead and about her mouth.
"Nannie, tell me everything."
She put the candle on the table at the head of the bed, and sat down, leaning forward a little, as if a weight were resting on her shoulders. Her clasped hands, hanging loosely between her knees, seemed, in the faint light of the small, pointed flame, curiously shrunken and withered. "Tell me," she said heavily.
Nannie told her all she knew. It was little enough.
"How do you know that Elizabeth had broken with David Richie?" her stepmother said. Nannie silently handed her Blair's letter. Mrs. Maitland took up her candle, and holding it close to the flimsy sheet, read her son's statement. Then she handed it back. "I see; some sort of a squabble; and Blair—" She stopped, almost with a groan. "His friend," she said, and her chin shook; "your father's son!" she said brokenly.
"Mamma!" Nannie protested—she was sitting up in bed, her hair in its two braids falling over her white night-dress, her eyes, so girlish, so frightened, fixed on that quivering iron face; "Mamma! remember, he was in love with Elizabeth long ago, before David ever thought—"
"In love with Elizabeth? He was never in love with anybody but himself."
"Oh, Mamma, please forgive him! It's done now, and it can't be undone."