Heloise’s eyes were almost black now in her excitement, and her voice was husky as she said:
“You guess he was my beau! Why do you guess so? What business have you to guess so? Tell me, child.”
She seemed many years my senior then, and in obedience to her question I answered:
“I’ve seen him look at you just as brother Tom looks at Samantha Blackmer, and he’s her beau; and then I saw him kiss you once down by the river, that time I came upon you suddenly, you remember; but I never told. He was your beau, wasn’t he?”
She did not answer for a moment but her lips moved as if she were trying to speak, and at last she said:
“No, he was not my beau, Ettie (that was my pet name twenty years ago, before I was the village schoolmistress)—Ettie, I believe you like me, and I want—I want—you—to,—oh, Ettie, if ever people say bad things of me don’t you believe them, but stand by me, won’t you?”
She had both my hands in hers, and was looking straight into my eyes with an expression which half-frightened me out of my wits, as I told her I would stand by her, without, however, knowing at all what she meant. I was a little proud to be thus appealed to, and when the fixed expression of her face gave way and the tears began to roll down her cheeks, I cried too from sympathy and tried to comfort her and made her lie down upon her bed, and when she was more quiet sat by her until I heard her mother’s step below. Then I took my leave, for I was afraid of Mrs. Fordham, whom I met on the stairs, and whose face I fancied looked brighter and more cheerful than faces usually do when returning from a grave.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CONFESSION.
“Heloise,” Mrs. Fordham exclaimed, as she entered her daughter’s room. “What is the matter? You look as if you had been sick for years. Can it be you loved him so much?”