Faith ran to the door and shut and locked it. Her throat was throbbing with suppressed sobs and her lips shook.
She had been so fond of Peg. She had looked up to her and admired her, but to-night she could find it in her heart to hate her for her handsome beauty and insolence.
She, too, had seen the look of admiration in Forrester's eyes, and a little sick suspicion rose above the angry tumult of her heart.
Supposing he really did like Peg? Supposing he more than liked her? She was handsome enough to take any man's fancy, and Faith knew how badly Forrester had suffered over the disappointment of his marriage.
A hundred little incidents came crowding back to her mind, cruelly magnified. The way he invariably chose to talk to Peg in preference to herself. The way he had elected to sit with her at the back of the car that afternoon, though she had offered to change places. The way he had overruled her objections with regard to Peg's gaudy choice of decoration when first they came to the house.
"What does it matter if it pleases her?" he had said, in his careless way. "I like to see her happy."
She had thought nothing of it at the time, but it seemed a great matter now. And at the memory of Peg's crude accusation the blood rushed stingingly to Faith's pale cheeks.
"I'm not jealous! How dare she say so? I hate her—I hate her!"
She spoke the words in a whisper through the silent room and the bitter sound of them frightened her.
Hate Peg! Oh, no, she did not mean that. Peg had been a good friend to her—Peg had never failed.