“No” snapped Mrs. Pennycook, quick to see her opening, “but we were all hoping to hear—for your sake.”
“But you guessed something when I resigned my position at the eating-house?”
Donna could scarce restrain a smile as she saw the eagerness with which Mrs. Pennycook showed in her true colors by walking blindly into this verbal trap. A slight sardonic smile flickered across her stern features.
“We didn't suspect. Everybody in town knew. And, not to beat about the bush, Miss Corblay, we came here to-day to find out. We're old enough to be your mother and we have daughters of our own, and in a certain sense, havin' known you from a baby, we felt sort o' responsible-like.”
“Ah, I see” Donna almost breathed. “You were suspicious-like.”
Two of the committee showed signs of inward disturbance, but, having fixed bayonets, Mrs. Pennycook was now prepared to charge.
“We came to find out if you're an honorable married woman, or—”
“Quite right, Mrs. Pennycook. That is information which you, and in fact every person in San Pasqual, is entitled to know. I am an honorable married woman. I was married in Bakersfield on the seventeenth day of last October.”
“Well, then, where's your husband?”
“That is a question which you are not privileged to ask, Mrs. Pennycook. However, I will answer it. My husband is about his lawful business somewhere in the Colorado desert.”