Leslie moved away to a little distance. She had spoken with emphasis and spirit, but never in the whole course of her life had she felt so cold, so bitter. Although she had promised before God not to betray her miserable companion, yet she knew no sense of happiness. It seemed to her that she was setting the seal to her degradation. Never again could she be happy. Always now there would be one person who would think of her as a girl capable of any meanness, any smallness, any deceit. The mere knowledge that someone would so regard her troubled her so much that she wondered if, in the future, she could lead an upright life. And why was she doing it? For Annie did not appreciate her sacrifice, except in as far as it saved Rupert; and as to Rupert himself, it needed only to look into his face to see how weak and worthless he was.
Wrapped in the misery of these thoughts, Leslie did not notice Annie until she came back and touched her on the arm.
“He cannot praise you enough. You do not know what he has been saying of you. He wants to bid you good-by now. He is going to Australia; he has made up his mind. I shall never see him more.”
There was a note of such utter misery in Annie’s voice that Leslie, wretched as she was, started up and shook herself.
“Let him go,” she said. “I do not want to speak to him again.”
“But I so earnestly wish you would. He is terribly touched by what you have done. This may be the turning-point. Do come and shake hands with him.”
“I cannot.”
“You cannot? Leslie, do you think him as bad as all that?”
“He is very bad, Annie, and he is making you bad—and, oh, indirectly he is making me bad too. I cannot go; I can never touch his hand.”
“You are too hard,” said Annie. “I could have loved you for what you have done; but when you speak against him I cannot bear you.”