The girl stepped quickly, eagerly forward, but Wyndham stopped her imperatively, and standing between her and the door, he spoke to the Professor.
‘It is impossible to turn her out at this hour—in this weather.’ He stopped, and now looked at the girl and spoke to her.
‘Why can’t you trust us?’ he said, with angry reproach. ‘Why can’t you let us do something for you? You must have a home somewhere, however bad.’
The girl thus addressed turned upon him suddenly with miserable passion shining in her large, dark eyes.
‘I have not,’ she said. ‘Under the sky of God, there is no creature so homeless as I am.’
Her passion was so great that it struck the listeners into silence. She made a little gesture with her arms suggestive of awful weariness, then spoke again:
‘There was a place where I lived yesterday. It was not a home. I shall not live there again. I have left it. I shall not go back.’
‘But where, then, are you going?’ asked Wyndham impulsively.
‘I don’t know.’ She drew her breath slowly, heavily. It was hardly a sigh. There was enough misery in it for ten sighs. But her passion was all gone, and a terrible indifference had taken its place; and there was such consummate despair in her tone as might have touched even the Professor. But it did not. He had begun to study her. He was always studying people, and now a curious expression had crept into his face. He leaned forward and peered at her. There was no compassion in the glance, no interest whatever in her as a suffering human thing; but there was a sudden sharp interest in her as a means to a desired end. Thought was in his glance, and a wild longing that was fast growing to a hope.
‘Have you no plans, then?’ asked the young man. His tone was sad. He had looked into the depths of her dark eyes, and found there no guile at all.