"Oh, there you are," she said.
"I'm getting the steps to put the chains up, you can come and help me."
"There's ... there's a lady outside, Kate," Annie panted.
"I think she's coming here."
"A lady?" Kate asked, knowing that any of their usual visitors would have had the term 'woman' affixed to them.
"Do you know who it is?"
she went on, straightening her dress, one of the faded and washed out Quaker-grey dresses she had worn at the Tolmaches, and smoothing her burnished hair up the back of her head with a sweep of her hand.
"It's ... I think it's..." But Kate was already in the kitchen, and Annie let her go through the front-room without adding, 'the doctor's wife. "
To say that Kate was surprised at the sight of her visitor was to say the least. She looked at this beautiful, magnificently-dressed woman, with the background of the car behind her, and found herself incapable of uttering a word.
"Miss Hannigan?" Stella asked.
Kate inclined her head slowly.
"May I come in? I should like to talk with you."
Stella, poised and calm, felt she already had this woman at a disadvantage. She took in, at a glance, the poverty of Kate's attire, shutting her mind to the beauty that it clothed.
At the second motion of Kate's head she stepped into the front-room, and barely suppressed a shudder as she looked around at the horse-hair suite and the bamboo table standing on the bare wood floor.
Kate found her voice: "Will you come into the kitchen, it's warmer there?" She led the way, and indicated Tim's chair to the visitor. To Annie, who was standing wideeyed, she said, "Go into the front-room, dear, and dose the door."
Stella experienced a sense of irritation at the sound of Kate's voice;
she must, she conceded, be suffering a shock, yet her voice was strangely controlled and well modulated; there was none of the raucousness that, to her mind, accompanied the Tyneside speech. She remembered vaguely having heard that one of the old Tolmaches had educated the girl, which increased her irritation. But her voice was cool and level when she spoke:
"You wonder why I am here. Miss Hannigan?"
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"No," answered Kate surprisingly.
"Oh 1' said Stella, slightly nonplussed.
"Then that does away with the need of an introductory opening.... Sit down," she spoke as if commanding a servant; 'you'll be tired before we finish, no doubt. "
"Thank you; I don't wish to sit down," said Kate. She stood with one hand resting on the kitchen table and holding the middle button of her dress with the other.
"Very well!" Stella suppressed her annoyance with difficulty, for this attitude was unexpected.
"I shall come to the reason for my visit right away," she said.
"My husband is, as I suppose you know, expected home any day now. I understand he is a very sick man and will need careful nursing for some time, as I expect the surgery was rough in a prison camp, especially with amputations."
She was allowed a pause, while they stared at each other.
"He will," she went on, 'need peace, and rest from worry. Whether or not he gets it will depend on you, Miss Hannigan. "
Kate did not answer, but her eyes widened slightly and became dark.
T want you. Miss Hannigan. " Stella continued coolly, 'to leave the district, and promise in no way to get in touch with my husband. If you do this he will have a chance to get well and strong again, and to resume his career, which means so much to him."
"And if I don't?" put in Kate quietly.
"Then, if you don't, he will not have a career to resume ... for I will sue for a divorce."
"There are no grounds for a divorce," Kate said evenly.
"And, anyway, divorce does not end a man's career."
"To the first ... I can prove there are grounds for divorce."
Stella opened her bag and took out the bundle of letters.
"These are six of my husband's letters to you. In one of them, he speaks of " our beautiful Annie", and that he has loved her since the day he brought her into the world; in another, that to him you are more than a wife, and he makes reference to a week you are to spend together, which he refers to as " heaven"."
The button Kate was holding snapped across, making a loud twang in the silence. Her letters! How? Where? Mrs. Mullen? No.
Who, then? Dorrie Clarke! Last Christmas Eve. Yes, sending Annie out so that she could search. Annie hadn't told her of that until after Christmas, knowing she was so worried and it would only have annoyed her to know.
Kate's voice trembled as she said, "He's not Annie's father ... you know he's not."
"Whether I know it or not everything points to it. I can do my best to prove it. But I am not going on that alone.... Rodney made no secret of his attachment to you; he never does when he has these strong attachments for women. You start. Miss Hannigan," said Stella, with a smile.
"Surely you didn't think you were the only one. Dear, dear 1 I've had to straighten out these affairs all my married life. But that's beside the point.
"The Christmas Eve before last he spent the night here, and most of the following week. You don't deny that?"
Kate did not answer.
"Also, previous to that, you were seen in a field...."
"In a field 1 " Kate exclaimed in amazement.
"Yes. Somewhere near Felling. That was at Christmas time, too."
The night of the drivel Kate thought; walking across the moonlit green hill. Oh, Rodney. But to put it like that. in a field! How sordid it sounded.
"Mrs. Richards, Doctor Richards's wife, told me of
