"I presume likely the Dunns told you, Caroline," he repeated, calmly.
His niece met his gaze stubbornly.
"Well," she answered, "and if they did? Wasn't it necessary we should
know it? Oh!" with a shudder of disgust, "I wish I could make you
understand how ashamed I feel--how WICKED and ashamed I feel that I--_I_
should have disgraced father's memory by... Oh, but there! I can't! Yes;
Mrs. Dunn and Malcolm did tell us--many things. Thank God that we HAVE
friends to tell us the truth!"
"Amen!" quietly. "I'll say amen to that, Caroline, any time. Only I want
you to be sure those you call friends are real ones and that the truths
they tell ain't like the bait on a fishhook, put on FOR bait and just
thick enough to cover the barb."
"Do you mean to insinuate--" screamed the irrepressible nephew, wild
at being so completely ignored. His uncle again paid not the slightest
attention.
"But that ain't neither here nor there now," he went on. "Caroline, Mr.
Pearson just told you that his coming to this house without tellin' you
fust of his quarrel with 'Bije was his fault. That ain't so. The fault
was mine altogether. He told me the whole story; told me that he hadn't
called since it happened, on that very account. And I took the whole
responsibility and ASKED him to come.
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