"We don't want her to go…. She made us love her more in one fortnight than girls we've had with us for years…. Perhaps some day we may have her again."
The poor, kind woman. The kind, dead woman. Years ago dead; her poor voice rising up, a ghostlike wail over your "unbelief."
That was only the way she began.
"I say—I say!"
The thin voice was quivering with praise. Incredible, bewildering praise. "Remarkable.—remarkable".—You would have thought there had never been such a remarkable child as Mary Olivier.
It came back to her. She could see Miss Lambert talking to her father on the platform at Victoria. She could see herself, excited, running up the flagged walk at Five Elms. And Mamma coming down the hall. And what happened then. The shock and all the misery that came after.
"That was the letter you wouldn't let me read."
"What do you mean?"
"The day I came back. I asked you to let me read it and you wouldn't."
"Really, Mary, you accuse me of the most awful things. I don't believe I wouldn't let you read it."