"You look like a child, yet you don't," he went on, and his frank, honest voice calmed her. "You've had some painful experience, I'd say."
She nodded, her eyes down.
A pause, then he: "Honest, now—aren't you—running away?"
She lifted her eyes to his piteously. "Please don't ask me," she said.
"I shouldn't think of it," replied he, with a gentleness in his persistence that made her feel still more like trusting him, "if it wasn't that——
"Well, this world isn't the easiest sort of a place. Lots of rough stretches in the road. I've struck several and I've always been glad when somebody has given me a lift. And I want to pass it on—if you'll let me. It's something we owe each other—don't you think?"
The words were fine enough; but it was the voice in which he said them that went to her heart. She covered her face with her hands and released her pent emotions. He took a package of tobacco and a sheaf of papers from his trousers pocket, rolled and lighted a cigarette. After a while she dried her eyes, looked at him shamefacedly. But he was all understanding and sympathy.
"Now you feel better, don't you?"
"Much," said she. And she laughed. "I guess I'm more upset than
I let myself realize."
"Sorry you left home?"