“No,” she returned; “I daresay he meant to be kind, but I didn’t care to be beholden to any friend of Arthur’s. He came here again yesterday, but I wouldn’t see him, so he left a note giving me his aunt’s address and saying she’d have a room ready for me at any time.”
There was a long silence; she had dried her tears and sat looking at Woburn with eyes full of helpless reliance.
“Well,” he said at length, “you did right not to take that man’s money; but this isn’t the only alternative,” he added, pointing to the revolver.
“I don’t know any other,” she answered wearily. “I’m not smart enough to get employment; I can’t make dresses or do type-writing, or any of the useful things they teach girls now; and besides, even if I could get work I couldn’t stand the loneliness. I can never hold my head up again—I can’t bear the disgrace. If I can’t go back to Joe I’d rather be dead.”
“And if you go back to Joe it will be all right?” Woburn suggested with a smile.
“Oh,” she cried, her whole face alight, “if I could only go back to Joe!”
They were both silent again; Woburn sat with his hands in his pockets gazing at the floor. At length his silence seemed to rouse her to the unwontedness of the situation, and she rose from her seat, saying in a more constrained tone, “I don’t know why I’ve told you all this.”
“Because you believed that I would help you,” Woburn answered, rising also; “and you were right; I’m going to send you home.”
She colored vividly. “You told me I was right not to take Mr. Devine’s money,” she faltered.
“Yes,” he answered, “but did Mr. Devine want to send you home?”