“But I say you shall hear me, mother, whether you like it or not. I’ll not let you or any one else call me the filth which you did this morning for nothing.”
The girl’s voice was hoarse with nervous feeling, Mrs Mailing shook her rolling-pin in a perfect fury.
“Out of this kitchen, you baggage! Out of it, do you hear me? Go an’ get your garments packed up, and out ye go into the street. Child o’ my flesh, are ye? Out of my house, you drab, or maybe I’ll be doing you a harm. I’ll teach the like o’ you to be stoppin’ out o’ nights an’ then to come back wi’out a word of explainin’. I’ll teach you.”
“Give the child a hearing, Hephzibah,” said Sarah, in her soft even tones, as there came a lull in the angry mother’s tirade.
Prudence shot a grateful glance in her preceptor’s direction.
Hephzibah turned swiftly on the peaceful Sarah. But the words of anger which hovered upon her lips remained unspoken. Sarah was an influence in the old lady’s life, and long association was not without effect. She visibly calmed. Prudence saw the change and took advantage of it.
“How could I explain when you wouldn’t listen to me?” she exclaimed resentfully. “Almost before I could say a word you called me all the shameful things you could think of. You drove me to silence when I was willing to tell you all––I was more than willing. You must know all, for the story I have to tell as nearly affects you as it does me. I stayed away from home to save an innocent man from the dreadful charge of murder, and your son from perpetrating the most wanton act of his worthless life.”
A dead silence followed her words. Hephzibah stared at her with an expression of stupefied amazement, while Sarah turned in her chair with a 325 movement which was almost a jolt. The silence was at last broken by the girl’s mother.
“Murder? Hervey?”