Martha measured out two heaping tablespoonfuls of freshly-ground coffee into the percolator, and set it on the stove.
"I saw your gran'ma yesterday, Miss Katherine," she explained. "Her an' me had a long talk, an', from what she dropped, I got the impression she meant to turn over a new leaf two-wards you, if you'd give her the chance."
"Well, then, I guess you were mistaken. Or, perhaps she _meant_ to try to do better by me, and, when the time came, she just couldn't, that's all. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. But no matter what she _meant_, no matter what _I_ did, the end of it was, we had a terrible time and--I've come away for--good."
After an interval, during which Martha had quietly relieved Katherine of the bag she clutched, she set before her a cup of steaming, fragrant coffee.
Katherine shook her head. "I couldn't touch it. I'm not hungry."
"Drink it down, hungry or not!" commanded Martha authoritatively.
"You must have been at the house late, yesterday afternoon," she said, between her absent sips. "For, I wasn't there, and I'd been at home all day except for an hour or so toward evening, when I went to the Ronalds'. When I came in grandmother called me, and, now I come to think of it, she did seem milder, kinder. She told me to take my dinner and then, after dinner, to come to her. It always scares me when grandmother summons me to appear before her--like a pensioner, or a criminal. It's always been that way, ever since I can remember. The sight of her, sitting there, cold and distant as a marble image, always freezes me to ice. I can't help it. I know I'm a coward, but I can't help it.
"I couldn't eat my dinner, for thinking what she had to say, so, by the time I went up to her, I was all of a tremble inside, though I probably didn't show it.
"Then she told me--told me--about her life. About my grandfather--my father. If you knew what I've sprung from, Mrs. Slawson, you'd turn me out of your house."
"Rot!" said Martha, "askin' pardon for the liberty."
Katherine went on--"Think of being watched, day after day--always under suspicion.--Think of having some one always being in fear and trembling because the time'll surely come when you'll show what you've sprung from. And, of course, it comes. I did the things my grandfather and my father had done before me. That was why, when I told her about the pocket, she sent me away from her. The thing she had dreaded, had happened."