“If you cannot tell me, well, there’s no more to be said,” he remarked. “I am cut up a bit, that’s all. But understand this, Leslie, I’ll have no more fooling. There is a limit even to my endurance, and, when roused, I can be hard and very just. I will never tell your mother. I wouldn’t vex her nor give her another care for all the money I possess. You did wrong in spending that money
before you got it; you did very wrong to go into debt. If you go in debt again, why, there, I won’t help you. But if you ask me for money, and say you want it, and give me a good reason—even if it is to buy a smart frock or pretty hat—you shall have it, child; and there’s my last word. Good-by, my dear. Don’t fret too much. Whatever you may have done wrong, you stand in Jenny’s place to me now. Cheer up, cheer up.”
But Leslie could not utter a word, she did not even raise her head; she was only conscious that Mr. Parker had pulled out his watch, uttered a hasty exclamation, looked to right and left, then, going up to her, stooped and kissed her lightly on her forehead.
“For your father’s sake, and for the sake of old times,” he said.
She heard his retreating footsteps as he went along the towing-path to Wingfield.
For nearly an hour Leslie Gilroy sat on that seat alone. None of her companions came by. She was glad of this, if she could be said to be glad of anything at that moment. She felt stunned; all her life up to the present had been bright. She found herself all of a sudden, through no fault of her own, in the position of one who is degraded, dishonored; she, who had always been upright, respectable, and respected. With her and open sin there was nothing whatever in common. To sin gravely, to commit a really great sin, was impossible to a nature like Leslie’s. Direct temptation would shrink away from one so pure, so innocent, so generous, so loving; and now she was stained just as if she had really committed the sin which she loathed. How could she live under this terrible imputation? How could she take the sin of another and bear it bravely on her young shoulders? The man to whom she was indebted for so much
believed her guilty. How could she stand it? Was it right for her to stand it?
Leslie considered this with bent head and knitted brows.
Suppose she wrote to Mr. Parker, and told him the truth, what would happen then? She could guess, and the thought of what would happen caused her to tremble. He liked her; he was kind to her for her dead father’s sake and because he imagined that she bore a likeness to the child he had lost; but he had spoken with a certain harshness of the Colchesters. He would certainly not stand the knowledge that he had been befooled by a girl twice as clever as himself. He would come down to Wingfield, he would see Annie, he would speak to the authorities about her, she would be rusticated, sent down, expelled. Her career in life would be practically ruined. No. Leslie felt she could not betray her.
“Not yet, anyhow,” she said to herself. “If she will confess, I think Mr. Parker will forgive her, but I cannot be the one to ruin her whole life.”