He pitied the girl from the bottom of his heart; but what could he do for her other than offer her cold sympathy? He was ill at ease in the face of this peculiar tragedy.
All at once the girl stopped and faced him, There was a smile on her lips, a smile that might be likened to a flash of sunlight on a wintry day. Directly the smile melted into a laugh, mellow, mischievous, reverberating.
Warrington sat up stiffly in his chair.
"I beg your pardon!" he said.
The girl sat down before a small writing-table. She reached among some papers and finally found what she sought.
"Mr. Warrington, all this has been in very bad taste; I frankly confess it. There are two things you may do: leave the house in anger, or remain to forgive me this imposition."
"I fail to understand." He was not only angered, but bewildered.
"I have deceived you."
"You mean that you have lured me here by trick? That you have played upon my sympathies to gratify ..."
"Wait a moment," she interrupted proudly, her cheeks darkening richly. "A trick, it is true; but there are extenuating circumstances. What I have told you HAS happened, only it was not to-day nor yesterday. Please remain seated till I have done. I AM poor; I WAS educated in the cities I have named; I have to earn my living."