Kenton was astonished at himself for not having thought of that.  “And what are you going to do, Sarah?”

“I am going to tell her,” said Mrs. Kenton.

“Why didn’t poppa tell me before?” the girl perversely demanded, as soon as her another had done so.

“Ellen, you are a naughty child!  I have a great mind not to have a word more to say to you.  Your father hasn’t been in the house an hour.  Did you want him to speak before Lottie and Boyne!”

“I don’t see why he didn’t tell me himself.  I know there is something you are keeping back.  I know there is some word—­”

“Oh, you poor girl!” said her mother, melting into pity against all sense of duty.  “Have we ever tried to deceive you?”

“No,” Ellen sobbed, with her face in her hands.  “Now I will tell you every word that passed,” said Mrs. Kenton, and she told, as well as she could remember, all that the judge had repeated from Bittridge.  “I don’t say he isn’t ashamed of himself,” she commented at the end.  “He ought to be, and, of course, he would be glad to be in with us again when we go back; but that doesn’t alter his character, Ellen.  Still, if you can’t see that yourself, I don’t want to make you, and if you would rather go home to Tuskingum, we will give up the trip to Europe.”

“It’s too late to do that now,” said the girl, in cruel reproach.

Her mother closed her lips resolutely till she could say, “Or you can write to him if you want to.”

“I don’t want to,” said Ellen, and she dragged herself up out of her chair, and trailed slowly out of the room without looking at her mother.

“Well?” the judge asked, impatiently, when he came in as soon after this as he decently could.  They observed forms with regard to talking about Ellen which, after all, were rather for themselves than for her; Mrs. Kenton, at least, knew that the girl knew when they were talking about her.

“She took it as well as I expected.”

“What is she going to do?”

“She didn’t say.  But I don’t believe she will do anything.”

“I wish I had taken our tickets for next Saturday,” said Kenton.

“Well, we must wait now,” said his wife.  “If he doesn’t write to her, she won’t write to him.”

“Has she ever answered that letter of his?”

“No, and I don’t believe she will now.”

That night Ellen came to her mother and said she need not be afraid of her writing to Bittridge.  “He hasn’t changed, if he was wrong, by coming and saying those things to poppa, and nothing has changed.”

“That is the way I hoped you would see it; Ellen.”  Her mother looked wistfully at her, but the girl left her without letting her satisfy the longing in the mother’s heart to put her arms round her child, and pull her head down upon her breast for a cry.