"I cannot stay in Old Chester any longer," she said; "dreadful things
have happened, and--"
"What things? You said that before. Do explain these mysterious
allusions."
"Mr., Wright's son," she began--and then her voice broke. But she told
him as well as she could.
Mr. Pryor gave a frowning whistle. "Shocking! Poor Nelly!"
"You see, I must go away," she said, wringing her hands; "I can't bear
it!"
"But, my dear," he protested, "it wasn't your fault. You were not to
blame because a rash boy--" Then a thought struck him, "but how the
devil did he discover--?"
When Helena explained that she supposed old Mr. Wright had told his
grandson, Pryor's anger broke out: "He knew? How did he find out?"
Helena shook her head; she had never understood that, she said.
Lloyd's anger always confused her, and when he demanded furiously why
she had not told him about the old fool--"he'll blazon the whole
thing!"--she protested, quivering, that Mr. Wright would not do that.
"I meant to tell you, but I--I forgot it. And anyway, I knew he
wouldn't; he said he wouldn't; besides, he had a stroke when he heard
about Sam, and he hasn't spoken since. And Dr. King--" she winced--
"Dr. King says it's the beginning of the end."
"Thank God!" Lloyd said profoundly relieved. He stood frowning for a
minute, then shrugged his shoulders, "Well, of course, that settles
it; you can't stay here; there's no question about that. But there's a
very pleasant little town, on the other side of Mercer, and--"
"It isn't just the going away," she broke in; "it's being different
from people. I never thought about it before; I never really minded.
But now, I can't help seeing that if you are--different, I mean just
to please yourself, you know, it--it hurts other people, somehow. Oh,
I can't explain," she said, incoherently, "and I don't want to trouble
you, or talk about right and wrong, and religion, and--that sort of
thing--"
"No; please don't," he said, dryly.
"But you promised--you promised!"
"I promised," he said, "and I have a prejudice in favor of keeping my
word. Religion, as you call it, has nothing to do with it. I will
marry you; I told you so when I wrote to you. But I felt that if I put
the matter before you, and told you how difficult the situation was,
and appealed to your generosity, for Alice's sake--"