“But you must. Listen to me, Leslie.”
Annie suddenly fell on her knees and took one of Leslie’s hands in hers.
“How luxurious this room is,” she said. She looked around it as she spoke, glancing at the curtained
windows, the pictured walls, the comfortable chair in which Leslie was seated.
“Your friends are rich,” she continued. “And although your home is plain enough, yet you have never wanted. I wonder, Leslie, if you were ever hungry, hungry to the point of starvation.”
“What do you mean?” asked Leslie.
“Oh, you’d know very well if you had suffered. Now, I have. Let me show you the money I have in my pocket.”
She slipped her hand into her pocket, took out her purse, and tumbled its contents into Leslie’s lap.
“I don’t want to see,” said Leslie.
“But you must look. See, here is a ten-shilling piece, and here are four shillings. Ten and four make fourteen. That is all I possess, absolutely all, and I have not a friend in the world. My brother——”