“What is it, Molly?”
“Betty”—she hesitated, and added miserably—“I ought never to have come to Paris.”
“Why?”
“Because—because there is no one to look after father—and—he never said a word to prevent me coming to Paris—he said he thought it would be just splendid for me—but—I know now how lonely he is—he’s such a man—he never said a word to hinder me leaving him all alone—never said a word that hinted of the lonely home I left behind me—but—well, it was the night before I left, I was lonely and got out of bed and crept downstairs, and he was sitting at a table, a lighted candle beside him, and he was looking at a little pair of shoes—they were the first little shoes I ever wore——”
She fell a-sobbing:
“And now I know—I know—I know.”
Betty laid her hand on the girl’s shoulder:
“But, Moll—you are going home to America within the year!”
She shook her head sadly:
“I ought never to have come here—we are so poor—I have crippled their means—I have crippled father—I am crippling dear old Dick—and I am only a mediocrity after all. And now I am doomed.”