A leaden weight seemed fastened upon Winnie’s facile tongue. Something in her throat threatened to choke her. She put her hand in her pocket, slowly drew out Leslie’s letter, and silently proffered it to Alan.
“Do you wish me to read it?”
She nodded, and lifted her hand to brush two big tears from her cheeks with a petulant motion.
A moment he stood looking at her intently, an expression of tenderness creeping into his face. Then he drew back a pace, and his lips settled again into firm lines as he began the perusal of Leslie’s letter.
Having read the missive slowly through for the second time, Alan refolded it and gravely returned it to Winnie.
“Thank you,” he said, in a subdued tone. “I am quite well aware, Miss French, that no word of mine can influence you in the slightest degree. Were this not so, I would beg most earnestly that you would comply, in every respect, with the wishes Mrs. Warburton has expressed.”
While he perused the letter, Winnie had somewhat recovered herself, and she now looked up quickly.
“In every respect? Mr. Warburton, that note says—‘trust me; do not desert me.’”
“And I say the same. To-day Leslie Warburton needs a true friend as much—as much as ever woman did.”
He was about to say, “as much as I do,” but pride stepped in and stopped the words ere they could pass his lips.