'You would do the same if you were in my place,' Lucy sobbed; 'you would be afraid to venture. What girl in her senses wouldn't?'
Miss Stubbs smiled.
'I know some girls who wouldn't,' she said.
She was very angry with Lucy—angry and impatient; but that did not account for the hard break in her voice.
'Hush!' Pamela exclaimed harshly; 'it is not her fault she has so small a soul.'
'I am sure you would not do otherwise,' Lucy sobbed, not heeding the interruption. 'You would be afraid to—to marry him. Oh! who could marry him?'
Maria's eyes were shining, and the hand that was stroking Lucy's hair trembled; but Pamela's face was hard and stony as she sat tearing up her papers, and her thin lips were pressed tight together.
'You would never be safe,' Lucy went on, defending herself. 'You would never know what he would do. He might break out at any time—he might kill himself, he might kill you!' The picture was too appalling, and Lucy subsided into a fresh passion of tears. 'Oh, I could never run the risk!' she said with a shiver; 'I should never be safe!'
'Not if you loved him?'