“Oh, mother!”
“You were not yourself.”
“Oh, mother!”
Mrs. Ayres took the girl by her two slender shoulders; she bent her merciful, loving face close to the younger one, distraught, and full of longing, primeval passion. “Lucy,” she whispered, “your mother never lost sight of—anything.”
Lucy turned deadly white. She stared back at her mother.
“You thought perhaps he was in love with Miss Farrel, didn't you?” Mrs. Ayres said, in a very low whisper.
Lucy nodded, still staring with eyes of horrified inquiry at her mother.
“You had seen him with her?”
“Ever so many times, walking, and he took her to ride, and I saw him coming out of the hotel. I thought—”
“Listen, Lucy.” Mrs. Ayres's whisper was hardly audible. “Mother made some candy and sent it to Miss Farrel. She—never had any that anybody else made. It—was candy that would not hurt anybody that she had.”