She started up and clasped her hands suddenly together, exclaiming:
"No, no, no; for pity's sake don't go yet! Now that you are here, for Heaven's sake stay a moment and listen to me!"
"What can you possibly have to say to me, Mrs. Grey?" coolly inquired the young man.
"Oh, sit down—sit down one little moment and hear me! I have not got the plague, that you should hasten from me so," she pleaded.
It was in Alden's thoughts to say that moral plagues were even more dangerous and fatal than material ones; but the woman before him looked so really distressed that he forbore.
"I know that you have ceased to love me," she went on in a broken voice. "I know, of course, that you have ceased to love me—"
"Yes, I am thoroughly cured of that egregious boyish folly," assented Alden, grimly.
"I know it, and I would not seek to recover your lost, lost love; but—"
Her voice, that had been faltering, now quite broke down, and she burst into tears and sobbed as if her heart was breaking.
And her grief was as real as it was violent; for she had loved the handsome young law student, and she mourned the loss of his love.