“It would kill him to lose me—and if I ever had to leave him it would break my heart.”
“To leave him—and come to me!” The words seemed dragged from Marian.
“Yes,” Joan answered, with darkening, resentful eyes; “nothing could make me more wretched.”
No reply came. The clock ticked on slowly, and Marian sat with bent head. How long this silence lasted, neither could have told. Marian felt at length a touch on the arm. Joan was standing by her side.
“Will you do it?” Joan asked hoarsely. “Will you give me up—altogether?”
“It is a hard thing to ask of a mother,” moaned Marian, still in the grasp of that dire temptation.
“Hard! Why, you have done it once, when you had no need!” The girl’s voice of scorn went through Marian like a knife-blade. “How did you know that I might not have been starved to death! You don’t suppose I can believe, after that, in your having ever cared for me!” Then with a sudden change to softness—“But if you will do this—if you will do what I ask—I promise to try and learn to love you.”
Again silence. Marian’s head had sunk on her chest.
“Then I shall take the matter into my own hands,” Joan said, flaming up into a proud and wrathful decisiveness. “I will tell father that I shall not leave him—that nothing can make me go away. And if it does him harm—if he is worse—then I will never, never speak to you again.”
When Marian again looked up, Joan was gone.