11
“I don’t—” Elisabeth protested, but it was no use. Charlie had grabbed both her arms. He shook her lightly.
“Tell me,” he begged. “Tell me what happens. Does Mary marry this guy? Am I going to run that mill? Maybe there’s no use to anything I might do. Maybe I’m just stuck. Or—did I disappear? Maybe I never went back to Linfield. Maybe I’ll never find my way back. Did my father sell the mill?” He shook her again. “Beth, if you know something—tell me!”
“I don’t know anything,” she gasped.
But she did. She had connected Charlie’s sister Mary Elisabeth with a cousin Mary of Burnham family lore. Yes, she married a man with two small boys. And her husband ended up beating her until she fled. By that time, the man—Dietrich Behr, a teacher of German at the fancy academy for ladies that Mar
