“Where's Lise?”
And Janet could not answer. She shook her head. Hannah dropped the fork, the handle of the frying pan and crossed the room swiftly, seizing Janet by the shoulders.
“Is she gone? I knew it, I felt it all along. I thought she'd done something she was afraid to tell about—I tried to ask her, but I couldn't—I couldn't! And now she's gone. Oh, my God, I'll never forgive myself!”
The unaccustomed sight of her mother's grief was terrible. For an instant only she clung to Janet, then becoming mute, she sat down in the kitchen chair and stared with dry, unseeing eyes at the wall. Her face twitched. Janet could not bear to look at it, to see the torture in her mother's eyes. She, Janet, seemed suddenly to have grown old herself, to have lived through ages of misery and tragedy.... She was aware of a pungent odour, went to the stove, picked up the fork, and turned the steak. Now and then she glanced at Hannah. Grief seemed to have frozen her. Then, from the dining-room she heard footsteps, and Edward stood in the doorway.
“Well, what's the matter with breakfast?” he asked. From where he stood he could not see Hannah's face, but gradually his eyes were drawn to her figure. His intuition was not quick, and some moments passed before the rigidity of the pose impressed itself upon him.
“Is mother sick?” he asked falteringly.
Janet went to him. But it was Hannah who spoke.
“Lise has gone,” she said.
“Lise—gone,” Edward repeated. “Gone where?”
“She's run away—she's disgraced us,” Hannah replied, in a monotonous, dulled voice.