“All right!” said the Spartan young man. “Then suppose you tell me what’s wrong?”
“I can’t, Jimmy,” she answered. Her hand rested on his shoulder, but her head was turned away. “I can’t—just now. Only, oh, Jimmy! Sometimes I wish I were dead! Dead and buried with my darling mother—”
He could think of nothing adequate to say to that, and, once more giving a careful glance at the road, he patted her hand.
“I’m sorry,” he declared gravely.
“I know it’s not fair—not to tell you,” she said. “But—can’t you just help me, Jimmy, and—and not care?”
A curious emotion filled him; a great compassion and a great dread.
“Why not?” he thought. “I don’t want to hear. I don’t want to know. Better let well enough alone.”
But he knew it was not better, and not possible. Not all the pity in the world should make him a blind and ignorant tool. He was in honor bound to ask his question.
“Just this,” he said. “That man—in the housekeeper’s room?”
“Why, what man?” she asked. “I don’t know what you mean.”