Alva smiled a little. "One ought to," she assented; "well, then, how can he bear to make your life so miserable?"
The white girl clasped her delicate hands tightly in her thin black merino lap. "I don't know," she said, in a voice almost like a wail; "but oh, we have been very miserable! We have such little income and it comes through the lawyer. He sent the lawyer to Seattle on business in July, and Mamma and I haven't had any money since. We have gone from place to place—we have almost fled from place to place; our trunks are held for bills; we are penniless, winter is coming, and—oh, I don't know what to do; I don't know what to do!" She bit her lip so as not to cry, but her pale face worked pitifully.
Alva looked at her in a curiously speculative but not at all heartless way. "Isn't it strange," she murmured, "that the resolution that drives one man to any heights will drive another of the same calibre to any depths?" She rose and went to her table. "Tell me," she said, taking a framed picture from before the mirror, "is he really like this? You said so before. Say it again."
Miss Lathbun took the picture in her two hands. "Oh, yes, yes!" she said, eagerly; "it is the same. They are just the same."
"What did you say his name was?" Alva asked, taking the picture from her and restoring it to its place.
Miss Lathbun told her: "Lisle C. Bayard."
Alva sat down again, and rested her chin on her hand as before. "I wonder how I can really help you. I am trying to be big enough to see."
Miss Lathbun's lips parted slightly; she looked at her breathlessly, and held her peace.
"Even if you were lying to me still," Alva said presently, "I should want just as much to help you. If you cheated me and laughed at me afterwards, I should still want to help you. If you are an adventuress and I succored you, what would count to me would be that I tried to do right."
She spoke in a strange, meditative manner; Miss Lathbun continued to watch her, always white, and whiter.