“I don’t know how to begin,” she said rather tragically, “only it has all been a frightful mistake and I was just as bad as you thought I was—perhaps worse—only——”
“Only you didn’t mean to be—you didn’t understand?” he suggested.
She looked at him helplessly.
“It is so different looking back,” she faltered. “It seems so perfectly awful now. I only found out to-day.” She clasped her hands rather wildly. She looked ill indeed; but he saw that there was nothing to do but to get through the explanation.
“You were making weekly visits to some sort of specialist—was that the case, Betty?” he asked kindly.
“Yes, sir, to Dr. Vandegrift, an eye-specialist. He promised to cure Rose and—he wouldn’t let us breathe a word to anyone,” she returned.
Meadowcroft sat erect. “I might have known!” he said to himself. To the girl he said: “Tell me all about it from the beginning, my poor child.”
Whereupon she began with the day of his first departure for Philadelphia and related the whole story in detail. She spoke falteringly, with downcast eyes, and now and again she choked. But she went on bravely, omitting nothing, yet making no attempt whatever at self-justification. Even now, she wasn’t wholly out from the spell of Dr. Vandegrift. And deeply touched as Meadowcroft was, his lips twitched more than once at the utter absurdity of the tragic recital. At the end, she handed him the newspaper with its sensational revelations.
Meadowcroft glanced through it. Then he rose, gave it to her, and held out his hand.
“My poor child, this has been a terrible experience for you,” he said very gently. “I can’t bear to think how deeply you have suffered, and I can’t tell you—I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am for you. And I wish——”