It was some time before she spoke again.
"I suppose she was beautiful," she said slowly.
"I don't know. Most of them aren't, off the stage. Anyhow, what does it
matter now?"
"Only that I know he has gone back to her. And you know it too."
He heard her going quietly out of the room.
Long after, he closed the house and went cautiously upstairs. She was
waiting for him in the doorway of her room, in her nightgown.
"I know it all now," she said steadily. "It was because of her he shot
the other man, wasn't it?"
She saw her answer in his startled face, and closed her door quickly. He
stood outside, and then he tapped lightly.
"Let me in, honey," he said. "I want to finish it. You've got a wrong
idea about it."
When she did not answer he tried the door, but it was locked. He turned
and went downstairs again...
When he came home the next afternoon Margaret met him in the hall.
"She knows it, Walter."
"Knows what?"
"Knows he was back here and didn't see her. Annie blurted it out; she'd
got it from the Oglethorpe's laundress. Mr. Oglethorpe saw him on the
street."
It took him some time to drag a coherent story from her. Annie had
told Elizabeth in her room, and then had told Margaret. She had gone to
Elizabeth at once, to see what she could do, but Elizabeth had been in
her closet, digging among her clothes. She had got out her best frock
and put it on, while her mother sat on the bed not even daring to broach
the matter in her mind, and had gone out. There was a sort of cold
determination in her that frightened Margaret. She had laughed a good
bit, for one thing.
"She's terribly proud," she finished. "She'll do something reckless,
I'm sure. It wouldn't surprise me to see her come back engaged to Wallie
Sayre. I think that's where she went."
But apparently she had not, or if she had she said nothing about it.
From that time on they saw a change in her; she was as loving as ever,
but she affected a sort of painful brightness that was a little hard. As
though she had clad herself in armor against further suffering.