The tone in which she spoke of the probable torment of her mother was quite without feeling. Callandar listened in fascinated wonder. Was this Molly?--Pretty, kind-hearted Molly?
"I cannot understand," he said in a stifled voice. "It is all too horrible! This man you married--"
"He is dead. He died a year ago. I thought at first that you must have found out and that was why you came. I should have died of fright if you had come while he was alive. He would never have understood--never! He didn't like mother but he wasn't afraid of her. And I think that at last he suspected that she had made me marry him for his money. But he was always good. At first I was afraid all the time--oh, it was dreadful! I think I have always been afraid--all my life--" Without warning she threw her hands out wildly and broke into choking sobs, crying with the abandon of a frightened child. Yet no one could have mistaken the impulse of her grief. It was for herself she wept.
Was it possible that she was a child still? A child in spite of her woman's knowledge, and the dulled lustre of her hair? Callandar remembered grimly that Molly's views of right and wrong had always been peculiarly simple. She had never wished to do wrong, but when she had done it, it had never seemed so very wrong to her. Her greatest dread had always been the dread of other people's censure.
She must have felt the change in his voice, for although her sobs redoubled she did not again shrink from the hand he laid upon her hair. It was all over. She had told him the truth. Surely he must see that he was the one to blame, not she.
After a while she dried her eyes and looked up at him timidly but with restored confidence.
"People need never know now!" she said more calmly.
She picked a daisy and began nervously to strip it of its petals--a pang of agony caught at the man's heart. So, only that morning, had he imagined himself consulting the daisy oracle. "She loves me, she loves me not." Absolutely he put the memory from him. Molly was speaking.
"People do matter. They make things so unpleasant. Not that I care as much about them as I used to; but still, one has to be careful. People are so prying, always wanting to know things," she glanced around nervously, "but let's not talk about them. I don't understand things yet. How did you find me, if you thought I was--dead?"