"Oh, no," sobbed Lassie; "it isn't a letter—it is Alva!" She paused and Ingram had just time enough to reflect how quickly a man could see straight through any woman, when Lassie could bear the burden of reserve no longer, and with a wild burst of accelerated woe cried: "She has told me her secret, and I listened 'way through to the end and then—then when I really understood and realized what it all meant, then I could not bear it, and so—and so—I ran away from her and down the hill and across the bridge and came here to be alone. And I wish you would go away and leave me alone; oh, I want to be alone so very, very much, for I cannot keep still unless I am alone; I am too unhappy over it all. Too unhappy. And I have promised her not to tell."
Ingram looked his startled sympathy. "What is the trouble?" he asked. "Tell me; perhaps I can help you. Why should you keep 'it' a secret? I'm her friend, too, you know."
"But it isn't my secret, it's hers," Lassie sobbed; "and I've promised; and, anyway, nobody or nothing can help her. Nothing! Nobody!"
"Is it really as bad as that?" said the man, looking very serious.
Lassie was wringing her hands. "Oh, it's ever so much worse than that; it's the very worst thing I ever heard of. And that shows how bad I am; for Alva is good, and it makes her happy!"
Naturally Ingram could not follow the reasoning which caused her terminal phrase to serve as a sort of mental apology for her way of looking at the affair, but he was not alarmed by the breadth of her confession of guilt, only unspeakably distressed by her distress, and its mysterious cause.
"But what is it?" he asked. "What has Alva done?"
"I musn't tell."
"Alva's not in any difficulty across the river there, is she?" he hazarded.
"Oh, no; she isn't in any difficulty; she is very, very happy. That's what seems so awful about it."