"But it was Uncle Robert who made you marry George Castner," her
sister urged.
"That is true," Bella nodded corroboration. "But it was not the
matter of a husband, but of a horse. I wanted to borrow a horse
from Uncle John, and Uncle John said yes. That is how it all
happened."
A silence fell, pregnant and cryptic, and, while the voices of the
children and the soft mandatory protests of the Asiatic maids drew
nearer from the beach, Martha Scandwell felt herself vibrant and
tremulous with sudden resolve of daring. She waved the children
away.
"Run along, dears, run along, Grandma and Aunt Bella want to talk."
And as the shrill, sweet treble of child voices ebbed away across
the lawn, Martha, with scrutiny of the heart, observed the sadness
of the lines graven by secret woe for half a century in her
sister's face. For nearly fifty years had she watched those lines.
She steeled all the melting softness of the Hawaiian of her to
break the half-century of silence.
"Bella," she said. "We never know. You never spoke.
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