S I was trying to go to sleep that night, I felt my ear pinched, and, turning, found Elsie in her dressing-gown bending over me.
“I've come to have a talk,” she whispered, setting her night-light on the dressing-table.
“It's very late, Elsie, and I want to go to sleep, dear,” I remonstrated.
“I dare say you do; so do I. But I can't till I've had a talk. Sit up, brown owl.”
I sat up: it was useless to oppose Elsie.
“That's right,” said she, giving me another pinch on the ear as she seated herself on the bed beside me. “Now tell me what all this means.”
She spoke very low, little mother's room being on the same floor.
“Which all?” I asked.
“'Which all'! I don't know if that's English, but I'm sure it's an evasion. You know what I mean. Why was poor little mother so awfully panic-stricken by the visit of that sandy wretch?”
“I—I can't quite tell.”
“Yes you can, and you shall. Don't tell me you don't know. What's the good of your being an owl, staring at nothing down your little hooked beak and looking wise, if you can't think a little deeper than others? You have got to speak or shriek—now then,” tightening her thumb and finger on a small piece of my arm, “which do you prefer?”
”You may pinch me if you like; I may shriek, but I won't talk lightly about grave things,” said I, losing my temper.
“Oh, Dolly,” said she, with a little tremor in her voice, “don't you know your own sister yet awhile? Can't you see just a little way under this frivolous skin of mine? Don't you know that while I've been joking all the evening my heart has been aching to see how hard it is for little mother to forget her secret. Tell me what it is, dear—even if I am a fool.”
I returned the pressure of her hand, and collecting my thoughts, so that I might in some degree ease her mind and yet conceal the facts that mother had told me to keep secret, I said—
“I can only imagine an explanation, Elsie, that may be far from the truth.”
“Tell me what you imagine, all the same.”
“Mr. Redmond, I think, was in love with little mother once upon a time.”
“He said so. I heard him when he was in the passage call her his old sweetheart, and he dared to call her Olive—that man! Mother could never have loved him.”
“The proof of that is she married father. I believe Mr. Redmond never forgave her that, and, in spite of all his professions of friendship, still bears her malice.”
“After all these years, Dol?”
“Yes. You would more easily understand that, Elsie, if you had been downstairs this afternoon. His talk was one long boast of conquest and triumph. I can conceive the bitter resentment such a man would feel towards one who defeated the object he had, perhaps, most set his heart upon achieving.”
“Yes, yes. Go on, dear.”
“From what I have read in history and stories, it seems to me that, next to love, vengeance is the strongest passion in men s hearts. When Mr. Redmond”
“Don't call him 'Mr.'”
“When Redmond found that all hope of making little mother his wife was gone, he may have promised himself that if ever the day came when he could humiliate and punish her, he would punish her without pity or remorse. He may even have told her so. Why, this very afternoon he said that if anyone but father had married mother he would have killed that man. And by her fear, it is only too plain that mother has reason to know he keeps his word in such things.”
“What do you mean, Dol? Why, surely you don't think that he would attempt would—would”
Her faltering tongue refused to utter the horrible suspicion that flashed upon her; but I knew what was in her mind.
“No, I don't think he would attempt any act of violence. He values his own life too much for that. And there are punishments more lasting and more terrible even than death.”
“Oh, do speak plainly, Dol!”
“Has it ever occurred to you, Elsie, that perhaps a long while back, when we were children—ten years ago—our father may have been tempted to do something wrong—something that compelled him to leave us and. seek refuge right away from civilised people in Africa?”
Elsie nodded assent readily.
“That might have given Redmond an opportunity for persecuting little mother. He might have called upon her always like to-day, with expressions of sympathy and friendship for 'po'r George,' and yet at the same time preyed upon mother's apprehensions, and gratified little by little his thirst for vengeance in the terror he inflicted. He may have known where father was, and kept little mother under the constant threat of betraying him.”