“Poor child,” Aunt Affy was saying in the kitchen, “it will break her heart.”
“It shall not break her heart,” was the fierce answer. “I would rather have told her he was dead than married—for her own sake. I cannot understand his shameful neglect. No money has come for her for six months—but she will never know that. His letter to me gives only the news of his marriage—his first letter for a month—but he has never written to me regularly as he has to her. It would be a satisfaction to run over to England to have it out with him.”
“But he had a right to be married,” said Aunt Affy, doubtfully.
“I am not questioning that. He had no right to hurt this child so—she has believed in him as if he were an angel sent out of Heaven for her special protection.”
“He isn’t the only angel,” said Aunt Affy, composedly. “I have been counting on him. That’s why I have had no help—I didn’t bestir myself for I expected news of his coming every week. Mrs. Evans’s sister, a widow who goes out nursing, can come the middle of this month. I didn’t tell Judith. I thought she was happy in being a ministering angel herself. And then she was going away so soon, if her Cousin Don should come I wanted her here when he came.”
“You had better send for the nurse,” said Roger, dryly.
“I’ll go after supper and see Mrs. Evans. I suppose you and Miss Marion will want my little girl again.”
“We certainly shall,” replied Roger with emphasis, “more than ever, now.”
“But she mustn’t be an expense to you,” said Aunt Affy, with an anxious frown.
“Never you mind the expense. If I don’t burn Don Mackenzie up in a letter, it will be because there are no words hot enough. I wish I could send him her face as she came to the understanding of my news. It would rather mar his honeymoon. I’ve kept this news a week, and now I had to come and blurt it out.”