“It seems to me as if she was all dramatic impersonation,” Lucy observed; “and still one cannot help loving and yearning over the cheerful-faced working-woman seated knitting before her kitchen fire with her dead husband’s lover-gift of a Bible lying on the dresser behind her.”
Miss Latimer looked at Lucy.
“Just now,” she said, “I found that Bible; it was in the dustpan, with a good many leaves roughly torn out.”
“She must have done that while she was—not herself,” said Lucy.
“No,” Miss Latimer persisted, “it was lying on the dresser all right this morning long after she knew perfectly well what she was doing. It must have been done about noon to-day.”
“But why should she do that?” urged Lucy. “Whatever is amiss with her now, and whatever may be the truth of her history, why should she suddenly and wantonly destroy something which she has evidently cherished for so many years?”
Miss Latimer shook her head.
“My dear,” she answered, “I begin to suspect that this poor Bible may have been but one of the ‘properties’ belonging to what you aptly call her ‘dramatic impersonation’ of the respectable, faithful widow. I would not be at all surprised if she picked it up at a second-hand bookstall, and matched her story to its names and dates. Don’t think me cynical. As a governess, I have lived in many houses, and have come across some strange adventurers. How do we know that her name was ever Jessie Milne, or that she was really a Mrs. Morison?”
“There were her credentials from Edinburgh,” explained Lucy; and then she told Miss Latimer all about the lawyer’s letter and the minister’s testimonial.
Miss Latimer sat and pondered.