It's a
secret," she added, fiercely. "You keep your mouth shut about it.
She never lived with him. She left him right off. I wouldn't know
it now but the servants were talking about the house being forbidden
to him, and I went straight to Mademoiselle. I said: 'You keep him
away from Miss Lily, because I know something about him.' It was
when I told her that she said they were married."
She went out and up the stairs, moving slowly and heavily. Edith
sat still, the pan on her knee, and thought. Did Willy know? Was
that why he was willing to marry her? She was swept with bitter
jealousy, and added to that came suspicion. Something very near
the truth flashed into her mind and stayed there. In her
bitterness she saw Willy telling Lily of Akers and herself, and
taking her away, or having her taken. It must have been something
like that, or why had she left him?
But her anger slowly subsided; in the end she began to feel that
the new situation rendered her own position more secure, even
justified her own approaching marriage. Since Lily was gone, why
should she not marry Willy Cameron? If what Ellen had said was
true she knew him well enough to know that he would deliberately
strangle his love for Lily.
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