For at the end of a few days Ellen knew, and Edith knew she knew.
Edith could not speak. She wrote her wants with a stub of pencil,
or made signs. One day she motioned toward a mirror and Ellen
took it to her.
"You needn't be frightened," she said. "When those scabs come off
the doctor says you'll hardly be marked at all."
But Edith only glanced at herself, and threw the mirror aside.
Another time she wrote: "Willy?"
"He's all right. They've got a girl at the store to take your
place, but I guess you can go back if you want to." Then, seeing
the hunger in the girl's eyes: "He's out a good bit these nights.
He's making speeches for that Mr. Hendricks. As if he could be
elected against Mr. Cardew!"
The confinement told on Ellen. She would sit for hours, wondering
what had become of Lily. Had she gone back home? Was she seeing
that other man? Perhaps her valiant loyalty to Lily faded somewhat
during those days, because she began to guess Willy Cameron's secret.
If a girl had no eyes in her head, and couldn't see that Willy
Cameron was the finest gentleman who ever stepped in shoe leather,
that girl had something wrong about her.
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