"I'm very sorry for you, miss, if that's what you mean," said Mrs. Susan Sharpe, respectfully. "Yours is a very sad affliction, indeed."
"A very sad affliction! Do you mean being imprisoned here?"
"Oh, dear, no, miss!" looking embarrassed. "I mean—I'm sure, I beg your pardon, miss—I mean—"
"You mean you pretend to believe Doctor Oleander's romance," interrupted Mollie, contemptuously. "You mean I am crazy!"
"Don't be angry, miss," said Mrs. Sharpe, deprecatingly. "I wouldn't give offense for the world."
"Look at me," said Mollie, impetuously—"look me in the face, Susan Sharpe, and tell me if I look like one insane!"
Mrs. Sharpe turned the mild light of the green glasses on the pale, excited young face.
"No, miss, I can't say you do; but it isn't for me to judge. I'm a poor woman, trying to turn an honest penny—"
"By helping the greatest scoundrel that ever escaped the gallows to keep prisoner an unoffending girl! Is that how you try to turn an honest penny, Susan Sharpe?"
Susan Sharpe, shrinking, as well as she might, from the fiery flashing of two angry blue eyes, murmured an inaudible something, and busied herself among the dishes.