Read "In Pawn" by Ellis Parker Butler online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
When Henrietta Bates told Miss Susan that Freeman Todder was her husband, she told the truth, with the sole exception that her name was not Henrietta Bates nor his Freeman Todder, but all her other stories regarding Freeman and the mythical Billy Vane were lies. Henrietta was not a wicked woman; she was the kindest-hearted woman that ever lived; always ready and eager to do a kindness and full of pity for those who, like Lem, seemed to be in trouble.
The trouble with Henrietta, to use that name as the most convenient, was that she was romantic. She was one of those women -- and there are men like her -- who live a few inches above the tops of their own heads so that their words have to jump above solid facts in order to give satisfaction to their imaginations.