"I am sorry to alarm you," he said stiffly. "I came to see if I could do anything for you, and to tell you once more that I can do nothing for you unless you are open with me, unless you help me."
The woman looked away to where the child sat, in a corner of the small room, playing with some disused cotton reels.
"You are very kind, sir," she said in a low, uneasy voice; "but I want nothing, we want very little, the child and I; and with what your kindness in getting me the machine helps us to, we have enough."
"You don't want to be reinstated, to get back your lover, to have your child acknowledged?"
The girl flushed; her hands, which were still locked together, trembled a little.
"I don't want for nothing, sir, except to be left alone."
Then she added, looking him straight in the face now, with a certain rude dignity:
"I wouldn't seem ungrateful, sir, for your great kindness. I think you are the best man I ever met. Oh, believe me, I am not ungrateful, sir! But it is no good, not a scrap, though once I thought it. We must get along as we can now, the child and I—shame and all."
She sighed, gazed intently for a silent minute at the keys of the elaborate machine before her, and then continued, speaking very slowly, as if she were afraid of drawing too largely on her newly-found candour.
"Why should I keep it from you? It makes me feel a liar every time I see you. I will be quite plain with you, sir; perhaps the truth's best, though it's hard enough. I've seen him; that's why I couldn't tell you any more. And it's all over and done, and God help us! We must make the best of it. You see, sir, he is married," said the girl, with a sharp intonation in her voice like a sob.