Dollie was out in the little kitchen making some tea, so Marion knew instinctively that Miss Allyn had something on her mind that she did not wish any one else to know about. She looked at her inquiringly, and with so much sympathy in her face that Alma Allyn stopped in her work and came over and stood by her.
“You think I’m a fool for being so much in love, don’t you, Marion?” she asked, smilingly. “Well, let me tell you how it was; George and I were children together. He wasn’t a very good boy, and I suppose I sympathized with him. He was always in some scrape or other, and everybody was down on him. Well, when we grew up there was no one else. George made love to me, and I let him, but then we were too poor to think of marrying. When mother died and I went home to her funeral, I found him there. We had then been separated two years, but had corresponded regularly. Almost immediately after the funeral he asked me to marry him, and I was so utterly lonely that I accepted him thoughtlessly. Not that I didn’t love him, Marion, for I did love him dearly. Someway he grew into my life and seems almost a part of it.”
“And do you trust him, Alma?” asked Marion, as she paused. “Are you sure that he will treat you right and be a good husband to you?”
Alma Allyn’s face clouded a little as she made her reply. In spite of her great love, she was still able to reason.
“I did trust him when I promised to marry him,” she said, slowly, “but something has happened since that is puzzling me, Marion. George is not the same man that he was at mother’s funeral.”
Marion’s lips framed a question that she did not ask. There was no need to ask it, for Miss Allyn was already answering it instinctively.
“He wanted me to marry him as soon as he got back from England, where he had to go on business, he said, and that is why I decided to take this flat with Dollie, but in the last two days he has changed his mind. He is not going to England, yet he says nothing about our marriage.”
Marion bit her lips and thought quietly for a moment. She could see that her friend was suffering, and she dreaded to say anything that would add to her sorrow.
“He may be undecided,” she said at last, “or perhaps he is planning something different, Alma, but if I were in your place, I would come right out and ask him.”
Miss Allyn was a trifle pale when she spoke again, and it was plain to Marion that she had doubts of her lover.