“Well, I must say,” cried her sister, “he seems to be in earnest, at any rate, even if you are not.”
“Alice, Billy West loves me as truly and deeply as any woman was ever loved.”
“Then it seems to me that you are treating his love pretty shabbily. Why don’t you tell him the truth?”
“It wasn’t until after he had gone away that I began to realize what a terrific mistake it would all be—that I would probably ruin his life as well as my own. I ought to have written him at once, and told him I couldn’t do what I had agreed.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I was weak. I hadn’t the courage. Every day I put it off till the next.”
“Well, it isn’t too late yet, is it? If I were you, I would sit right down and write him a letter.”
Edith flung herself despairingly into a chair. “I don’t know whether it is too late or not,” she wailed. “That’s what is worrying me so. I haven’t slept for three nights—ever since I got his last letter.”
Alice went over to her sister’s chair, and put her arm about her shoulder. “Look here, Edith,” she said, her tone showing plainly her anxiety—“what’s all this about, anyway? You seem to be terribly upset. I can’t make head or tail of the matter. What’s worrying you so?”