THE OLD MAID
“You won’t tell me who it was?”
“What’s the use? I haven’t told anybody.”
“Then why have you come to me?”
Charlotte’s stony face broke up in weeping. “It’s for my baby . . . my baby . . .”
Delia did not heed her. “How can I help you if I don’t know?” she insisted in a harsh dry voice: her heart-beats were so violent that they seemed to send up throttling hands to her throat.
Charlotte made no answer.
“Come back from where?” Delia doggedly repeated; and at that, with a long wail, the girl flung her hands up, screening her eyes. “He always thought you'd wait for him,” she sobbed out, “and then, when he found you hadn’t . . . and that you were marrying Jim... He heard
[ 40 ]
