Rose twitched herself about. “You can't expect him never to marry anybody because he isn't going to marry you,” she said, defiantly.
“I don't—I am not quite so selfish as that. But he won't ever marry anybody he don't like because she follows him up, and I don't see how that alters what you've done.”
Rose began to walk away. Charlotte stood still, but she raised her voice. “I am not very happy,” said she, “and I sha'n't be happy my whole life, but I wouldn't change places with you. You've lowered yourself, and that's worse than any unhappiness.”
Rose fled away in the darkness without another word, and Charlotte crossed the road to go to her Aunt Sylvia's.
Rose, as she went on, felt as if all her dreams were dying within her; a dull vision of the next morning when she should awake without them weighed upon her. She had a childish sense of shame and remorse, and a conviction of the truth of Charlotte's words. And yet she had an injured and bewildered feeling, as if somewhere in this terrible nature, at whose mercy she was, there was some excuse for her.
Rose was nearly home when she began to meet the people coming from meeting. She kept close to the wall, and scudded along swiftly that no one might recognize her. All at once a young man whom she had passed turned and walked along by her side, making a shy clutch at her arm.
“Oh, it's you,” she said, wearily.
“Yes; do you care if I walk along with you?”
“No,” said Rose, “not if you want to.”
An old pang of gratitude came over her. It was only the honest, overgrown boy, Tommy Ray, of the store. She had known he worshipped her afar off; she had laughed at him and half despised him, but now she felt suddenly humble and grateful for even this devotion. She moved her arm that he might hold it more closely.