The girl gazed, as if this were the last thing she had expected. Her eyes looked out blackly, defiance through suspicion, as the door closed after her. “See how miserable I am,” they seemed to say, “but don’t dare pity me!” Her face was startling, bewildering. It meant so much more than seemed in nature, even in a woman who had injured the man she loved. It had the furtive suffering of a creature in a trap. It seemed that at any moment her strained voice would break into a cry.
“You’re going to-morrow?” Florence asked her.
Julia stiffened. Her manner was perfunctory. “Yes, I’m going up to town. If there is anything I can do for you there—”
“Aren’t you needed here?” Florence asked her. She felt quieted by the other’s agitation.
The girl stared as if she suspected she was made sport of. “I? Oh!” She smiled sharply.
“Are you sure there is nothing you could do by staying?” Florence persisted.
“I see what you mean,” Julia replied, still in that whetted tone that served to defend her weakness. “My fault it happened! It’s done. How can I mend it? Oh, do you think any one regrets it more than I? I would do anything—anything,” she repeated with sudden vehemence, “to change it, to—but it is impossible!” Her hands, that she had pressed together, fell apart. She turned nervously toward the window, as if the sight of the wide, warm garden could help her. But Florence moved to intercept the glance.
“If one had injured a person one loved—” she began. She stopped, startled at the application those words had for her own case.
“A person one loved!” Julia repeated. The words seemed dragged out of her throat. She turned on the other woman piercing eyes. “But, if—he did not love you? If he loved another woman?”
Florence pressed her hand to her side.