“Wait,” she whispers with her last fragment of self-command. “Leave me to myself. Before sunset you shall have my answer.”
Further words are useless. Mamma, seeing this, turns slowly away, saying only, as she pauses at the door:
“Don’t waste your time; delays are dangerous.”
CHAPTER XLVIII.
A PROMISE RETRACTED.
Left alone, Leslie Warburton faced her problem, and found herself mastered by it. She had believed herself already overwhelmed with misery—had fancied that in coming among these people who claimed her, she had taken the last step down into the valley of humiliation, of shame, of utter wretchedness. But they had shown her a lower depth still, and bidden her descend into it.
Should she obey them? Her pulses were throbbing violently, a fierce flame burned in either cheek, a shade of the old delirium lurked in her eye. Should she crown her list of miseries with this culminating horror? Why should she not? What had she to lose? She, who had already lost husband, home and happiness; she, who was already an outcast, accused of treachery, of child-stealing, of murder; she, who was only a waif at best, and who could claim no kindred unless she accepted those whose roof then sheltered her? What had she to lose? Only her life, and that must end soon. Why not make this last sacrifice, then let it end.
Her calmness, that before had been at best but the calmness of despair, had forsaken her; had changed to the recklessness of desperation. Faster and faster throbbed her pulses, hotter surged the blood through her fevered veins, wilder gleamed the light of her eyes.